The Emperor Strikes Back
by Engineer Jess
Summary: 7 months after the last happenings... Buzz Lightyear is on the trail of Warp... but gets captured by Zurg. The Emperor wants to turn Buzz to serve him. A dark story.
1. The riddle of Buzz' ex partner

**Author Notes:**  
The following story has some similar themes to Captain Buzz Lightyear's stories, but I have his permission to use them. Also he has helped me with the details of this writing. Thanks to EMZ/Empress and Mira Elizabeth for help, too.   
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command © Disney/Pixar  
--------------

**Episode 3:**

**The Emperor Strikes Back**

 It was a very lazy day in space. Team Lightyear was on a patrol somewhere beyond the edges of Karn System and had literally nothing to do. It had been actually Commander Nebula's idea to order the team in such lousy jobs, according to him Buzz Lightyear was so stressed out that he needed some rest. But because the famous ranger always resisted for taking holidays -he wanted to be on the spot when duty called- this was then the authority's solution to give him some rest. Yet, Buzz did not feel any more relaxed, here he was mainly bored. Playing a holo-game of Super-Hyper-Multi-Mario was his most interesting topic of the day. Mira sat in the co-pilot of 42 and knitted a pink sock. Booster read the Space Ranger Holo-Manual, as always, although he after all these years knew it by letter.

"Hey, guys... I just found something interesting while surfing in the Citizen Security Database of the Galactic Alliance..." XR shouted from his corner where he tinkered with the computer.

"Don't you have anything better to do, XR? Guess you're again browsing there to find pretty ladies?" Buzz sighed annoyed from his chair.

"Well, okayday, I like to check out whether there's free tootsies! Might even work in Star Command HQ! But I found som'thing about one of our ol' pals!"

Mira and Buzz lazily scrambled up from their chairs. "Now it's better not to be about the café waitress you keep ogling..." Mira commented. Also Booster set himself behind XR to see what was so interesting.

"Don't you folks remember this damsel in distress? Didn't we use to save her quite a lot?" the robot pointed at the screen. A personal file of a woman in mid-twenties was his interest.

"That's Miss G'Deneb! The Engineer that invented that landanah energy supply!" Booster noted.

A sparkle ignited in XR's eyes. "Still a Miss... hmm..."

"Now you cut it out, blast, she's flesh and blood!" Buzz snorted and read the lines of the data screen. "She's not working for Star Command any longer. That's why we haven't seen her in ages. Look, she's got her own enterprise, 'Choice Landanah Inc.'"

"Making big mo with her energy, huh?"

In the screen could be read:

**Choi Zarah G'Deneb**

**              *******

**Status: single**

**Age: 26**

**Home Location: Gamma Quadrant Sector 4, Capital Planet**

**...**

**...**

"Seems to be the same miss as then... hey, what's the problem with the computer?" Mira suddenly interjected. The whole machine flickered, as it was to lose the connection to the database.

"A piece of asteroid!" XR hummed and attached a cable cord from his own circuits to the main computer. "I'll fix the error in a picosecond! Hmm... need to pass a couple of security codes... ok, no problemo, fast going... I caught a couple of passwords from the bin... connect... one, two, three, snap!"

The screen began to flood lists of numbers and matrix.

"XR, what did you do?" Buzz was now rather serious.

"Um... I'll fix it a bit more... now I passed a couple of other security levels... should be back... now! Yodeleiihoo!"

A black image appeared on the screen with a strange text '_The __Alliance__ Secondary Security Database'_.

"What is this, this is not where we were..." Mira shook his head. Soon the image changed back to a personnel file of Zarah. But, there was something quite odd in it.

"See, I got it back..." XR started, but his mouth dropped open just like the other rangers' ones. In the data cell cold, black lines narrated beside a serious-looking face picture of the woman:

**UNDER THE SPECIAL PROTECTION AND CONTROL OF THE GALACTIC ****ALLIANCE******

*********

**Choi Zarah Darkmatter**

**CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF CHOICE LANDANAH INC.**

**EYES ONLY-FILES: FOR AUTHORISED PERSONS ONLY                                   **

**Status: married**

**Age: 26**

**Home location: unknown**

...

...

...

After gaping the text half a minute, all of them interjected in unison: "DARKMATTER?"

"XR, WHAT did you do? This must be some kind of mistake... Did you infect the database with a virus?" Mira yelled to the nervous robot.

"No... this is not a mistake, you hacked into some kind of intranet that even we rangers are not allowed to log in." Buzz gravely inspected the screen. "You have done a sort of a security crime, ranger XR... but... how can this be..." he shook lightly his head, screwing up his eyes to get some sense to the changed surname.

"Does that mean that..." Booster whined terrified.

"How many Darkmatters do we know around here?" Mira pointed out.

"It can't be the same one we know... isn't he supposed to be... dead?" Booster added.

Buzz pressed his forehead with his fingers and deliberated. "We all have thought that Warp Darkmatter is dead. Maybe he is not. No one has heard anything about him since the formal amnesty. Well, then it was announced that he was dead... still, who knows. But... don't you rangers remember WHY he was given this decision to pardon? He saved this particular woman."

"Makes sense why this would be top secret information." Mira nodded.

"And the file here says she's married. It would be telling us she's a widow if she was."

"So... is she... married to Warp Darkmatter?" Booster stammered.

"With 99% probability. I believe there was something really serious going on between them when we were involved in the case of that alleged kidnap, then, when Zurg was also after my ex-partner."

"Um... why does it say that her home location is unknown?" Booster wondered.

"It doesn't really make sense..." Buzz wrinkled his brows. "Unless... there must be a place where Warp lives if he truly is alive. Maybe this refers... to it."

"Okey-dokey, what's so secret that even a top-secret file won't tell it to ya?" XR muttered.

Buzz did not pay attention any more the comments of the rest of the rangers. He gradually descended into his own world of ideas. "Warp Darkmatter... _alive_? How can that be...? Twice dead, twice came to life again, only in different connections..."

It was XR who finally got Buzz back to the reality. He waved long his metal fingers in front of his gaze and lastly threw a stinky sock from his inners under his nose. Everyone knows the strange additions the robot got after being rebuilt by the LGM, after the memorable blow-up.

Well, for Buzz it was not a pleasant way to awaken from the middle of his deep reflexions.

"Craters! Put that thing away!" he yelled.

"Cool down, cap. It was the only way to get ya outta your hallucinations. Was it Ozma you were dreaming about?" XR smiled a wide and a cunning grin.

"No, you silly hunk of metal. I was thinking... well... it's not that important", Buzz sighed and changed the discussion topic to something else. 

 After some hours, the workday was over. Commander had given new orders for 42, to return to Star Command HQ and let the rangers go home. No one referred to the security hack with a single syllable. It was now a quiet agreement that this puny mistake was kept as an inside information of Team Lightyear. 

 At home, on Capital Planet, Buzz sat in front of the holo-telly and flipped the channels. One was left open and the airing quiz competition went on.

_"The question is: King Nova is the ruler of which planet of the Galactic __Alliance__? For the correct answer, you can win one hundred thousand uni-bucks! All clap! Yippee! And, here are the alternatives: first: Capital Planet? Second: Rhizomia? Third: Mars? Fourth: Vorlon? Fifth..."_

"Aw, blast! No better amusement for a boring night?" Buzz cursed and then blundered in the middle of and classic movie.

_"---use the Force, Luke---" _

Snap. The Captain shut down the holo and sighed. "I've seen that film a million times... guess I better go to the kitchen and make a fast supper..." For a second he ceased the time to inspect the scale models of star cruisers squatting in his shelving. Star Command... his life, sacrifice and career...

 In the kitchen, he took some sandwich-making implement out of the freezer, but soon got buried into his thoughts as he sat there at his table. The tea in his cup gradually chilled to lukewarm dishwashing water. Buzz did nothing but stared in front of himself, leaning his elbows to the table. The house was completely silent, so there was nothing to interrupt him from his hypnosis.

 The only thought he had in mind, was the name of Warp Darkmatter. A man, that he had once called his partner and best friend. A man that he had trained side by side with him. He had turned to the dark side and become dead to him years ago. On the other hand, so he had thought, him to be eternally dead to the goodness. The dear friend he had one day had, had transformed to a monster called Agent Z, the henchman of the most evil megalomaniac of the universe. Zurg. Was that this man named Darkmatter, was it that his heart had always been nothing but cynic and selfish? No. Once there had been the young man, ready to blast off to Star Command, ready to defend the good. At what point had there been the temptation to offer a life to the dark forces? Buzz did not know that.

 But... seven months ago there had been a sudden and unexpected resurrection from the black abysses of evilness. A shooting star to the light that had ended up to a tragedy. Or had it? In the glowing lamp of the newest information, Warp was alive. But... how? And where? How was that on the whole possible? He was renounced to dead, and should have now been literally a corpse in a graveyard. However, the cosmos was full of mysteries. A name like Darkmatter was not a common name around; lastly there would be a second one of that family living in Capital Planet. In addition, what was it with the walking riddle Choi Zarah G'Deneb... or was she Darkmatter? She was assumingly living some kind of a double life, had this enterprise and her apartment on this planet as a coulisse. Behind it, in the unknown, she existed as a person someone else. In the scene of the court, when the formal amnesty of Warp was announced, she had been a lachrymose and pale shadow. No doubt that she loved him... who had changed completely his life because of her. Warp Darkmatter... where was he? How was he? What kind of man was he now? It was hard for Buzz to comprehend the change the emotionally indifferent man could have gone through. If it ever was that G'Deneb's mate really was his former partner, how could that man had ended up living settled life as _a married man?_ That was something too unbelievable. No, how could that Don Juan ever be capable of that? What was Buzz' reminiscent beyond the dusty years, there had never been respect towards women in Warp, even then when he had been a so-called space ranger. Five, even more girls had always been hanging from his arms, he had had nothing but overnight relationships. That had been his hobby, literally. Egoistic man that never had been content with a female, only saw them as objects. Cold, cold-hearted Warp... could he finally had yearned for something more profound instead of soulless gaining of malevolent glory and hedonism?

 Buzz stared out of the window glass. It was cool outside; a chill wind skimmed the walls of the penthouses. His eyes turned to watch the stars that twinkled in the velvet vacuum. There he was, somewhere... his old friend, as a reformed man? How could he find out the truth about him?

Lightyear stood up and tapped at the windowsill. 

"I have to meet him, in a way or another..." a lonely idea whirled around his mind. 

"I have to be sure that he exists... as a man that has left behind the life of a foe... I have to meet him... to see, that could there be good in him." In his deep mind-play, he started to do a second sandwich for himself, feeling subconsciously the snarl his stomach kept in hunger. However, being too much in one's thoughts is not necessarily the best way to build a delicious buttered slice of bread. He succeeded to spread the butter and set a fried pulu-egg (an ostrich-type bird living on a planet called Pulumaa, the eggs are very delicious) on it. But the spices, salt, pepper and oregano, ended up to swim among the tea he had. Next he took impassively the tea cup from the table and slurped a big swallow. What else was followed, but that he was coughing the washy liquid to the tub with a hideous grin on his face. 

"Blurbs!" he hackled and took a gulp of fresh water to get the fusty taste away. "Yuck! I'll never drink tea any more! I have to send a complaint letter to the manufacturer, the taste is awful! Craters!"

 His previous thought, nonetheless, came back in a breeze. He banged his fist against his chest and declared out loud: "I'm going to find it out!" Then came the reality to face him. How would he do that? It was not even one hundred percent sure that G'Deneb was united with _the_ Darkmatter he had in mind. But who else could that be... so Buzz would have to contact that woman somehow. He had thousands of questions, he needed to know. He needed to know the truth.


	2. Mrs Darkmatter's double life

2. Mrs. Darkmatter's Double Life

Early next morning, Buzz was dressed in a black suit, a white tissue peeping out from the left breast pocket, a tie put tidily around his neck. Half an hour ago, he had called his commander and asked for a free day. Nebula in the other end of the vid-phone had been very surprised, but in a positively way. He had with pleasure given the 'stressed-out ranger' the holiday he needed. According to the Commander, Lightyear had thus finally understood the meaning of quiescence.

 But Buzz' intentions were far something else. He was going to visit Choice Landanah Incorporated's central office that was on the other side of Capital Planet. He would have to go there by himself, because there was no use to attempt to start a vid-phone meeting with the chief executive officer Miss G'Deneb. Late last night he had ransacked all kinds of databases, white and yellow pages of the Galactic Alliance Network, with no remarkable results. There was no personal comm. link code for any private apartment of Zarah, neither it would be successful to try to catch such a busy businesswoman from her work, via phone. Nevertheless, he knew now the address of the enterprise central office, so why not to meet the woman of riddles by himself?

  "Let's see... wallet, keys, passport... shower... everything's OK", Buzz count the details he had to remember. He was going to take somewhat a long flight and needed everything possible with him. Coincidentally, his ship was fast, so it would take only a few hours to travel to the other side of the planet. Lastly he took a quick glance at the mirror, straightened his tie and made sure that no hair was peeping out from under of his purple thermal hood. Then, it was the heading to the garage.

-------------

 A short woman dressed in a long black costume suit sat behind a massive desk, where was a large holo-computer, electronic drawing pad, and a name sign with the text 'Choi Zarah G'Deneb'. This was the changed form of the young inventor who had shambled along Star Command HQ in overalls, still half a year ago. But... as the markets and scientist domains had been there to boost up the landanah-based new energy producing, no long time had gone by that she had set up her own enterprise with some co-workers. The usage of that new energy form was still in the shoes of an infant, but the stock exchange price of her enterprise was rising all the time. From all over the galaxy there were purchases, in addition the work offers that rained upon her all the time.

 Zarah was a wealthy woman, although she never did show it openly. She lived in a modest single-family house two-hour distance away from her work place, using a normal vehicle, avoiding all luxurious splurge. For the co-workers she was somewhat an odd bird, from the eyes of outside spectators she seemed to be very lonely, living simple life... and avoiding all private contacts with men. She was a target of constant rumours and stories, extremely odd was that she always used to work two weeks in row, even the weekends, then took a holiday of a fortnight and vanished somewhere, like a black hole would have swallowed her. No one knew a piece of meteoroid about her private life, only that she seemed to be extremely happy with her state, what ever it was, then.

 Nonetheless, today Zarah had an occupied day. There had been made a huge purchase offer of landanah energy supplies from a planet called Sukkamehu. Hours she had been debating about the wholesale prise indexes and trade discounts with the buyer. In the middle of all this, the face of her secretary appeared to the holo-phone.

"Miss G'Deneb, you have a guest here who says he needs to meet you immediately. He says this is very important."

"Now who is it? I haven't made appointments for today", Zarah a bit dryly answered.

"He says he is Captain Buzz Lightyear and that you know him", was the announce.

She blinked her eyes a couple of time for amazement. "Buzz Lightyear? What is he doing here? This must concern Star Command... no... Nebula would contact me, if they would want to debate about a job offer or relevant... but... too bad that I have so little time, now", she thought and gave the instructions to the assistant, "Send him in."

 Soon the electronic door whooshed open as the space ranger stepped in. Zarah stood up from her chair and saluted him.

"Good day, Mister Lightyear. What brings you here? I'm terribly sorry I'm very busy for the moment, but..."

"Greetings, Miss G'Deneb. I present my topic very shortly", he somewhat interrupted her and reeled her words about the haste in his mind, "Now... I have no time to explain and ask all the questions here, if she is this busy. And this is maybe not the best place to do that, either... let's pick something else up..." Next he took a wide smile on his face. "I would like to invite you to my home, I would have something very important to discuss with you."

Zarah shrugged a bit puzzled. "You cannot tell it me now, Mister Lightyear?"

"No, because I see that you're in a hurry, Miss. Please, this would be very essential to me. Would tomorrow evening be appropriate?"

"Let's see... a moment, please, I check my calendar", she picked a palm book from her handbag and typed something to it. "Yes... I have no meetings for tomorrow evening. That would be an appropriate time..."

"Thank you, this is very pivotal for me", Buzz sighed relieved and then informed about his address and the timing.

Zarah could do almost nothing but stare at him befogged and answer the quick questions he put under her nose. But as she agreed the time and place, Buzz prepared to leave her office, giving the farewells.

Buzz left the office a complacent smirk lifting up his mouth. Perfect. Finally the pieces would melt together, he would learn the true saga of his friend's destiny beyond two graveyards. Yet, he did not know how to bring the topic forth, when the woman would appear to his apartment, but he would fabricate a way for that, until tomorrow.

 Choi could do nothing but goggle the closed doorway in total confuse. What on Zenerdiodes was this all about? Important...? So had the famous ranger said. What could that be? Zarah did not find herself anyhow linked up to the life or work of Buzz Lightyear, excluding the amnesty he had arranged to Warp... and the couple of 'savings' he had done with his team. Buzz was his distant friend, though, but Zarah did not feel comfortable the idea that she would have to go alone to his home. She did not know why, maybe it was her usual shyness concerning the situations in male company.

"I guess I have to go and see, what's out there..." she sighed sound.

-----Next day-------- 

 With incoherent spirits, Zarah rang the doorbell of Lightyear's house. She was fatigued because of the work and literally felt uncanny standing here behind the door of that legendary space ranger. What was it that he wanted from her? She had pondered it a long time after Buzz had yesterday left her office. He had just popped there, completely unexpectedly.

The door opened. Buzz was dressed just as if he always was at home and invited Choi in. Quite awkwardly, she entered and hoped that his topic was not to suggest her to start dating with him or relevant.

"You can come to sit here in the kitchen. Would you like to have a coffee, or something?" Buzz asked and offered her a chair.

"Thank you that would be nice."

Buzz snapped the coffee maker on and with a side glance structinized the woman. Her hands were on the table, there seemed to be no ring on the ring finger. Only those strange carved long jewels around her middle ones. She watched elsewhere, obviously thinking something. He took two cups from the sideboard and poured her the hot drink. While she silently took a gulp, he decided to draw his errand forth.

"How was your day, Mrs. Darkmatter?" he threw the sentence pretending to be indifferent. But he should not have done his questioning that way, it leaded to the destruction of his one coffee cup. Zarah's eyes widened, she left an anxious scream, bounced away form the chair and crouched to the furthest corner of the room. The cup lied on the floor in two halves, the nice hot coffee as the drink of the dust bunnies.

"What do you want from me?" she shrieked.

Buzz put his hand over his eyes for shame. This was not the way he had wanted to start the discussion about Warp. Well, at least now it was clear that she indeed was married to him, that unwary behaviour revealed it in a picosecond. 

"Look, ma-am, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like this... I..." he stepped to her for to calm down the shaking woman.

"H-How d-do you know my real name?" she stuttered back.

He offered her the chair once again and pleaded her to cool down. "I do not mean harm to you, ma-am, I'll tell you everything. It was a pure accident, how I found out your secret."

But Zarah could not help being nervous. Her life was supposed to be a highly classified thing. Only a few persons in the highest positions of the parliament of the Galactic Alliance knew about her true being. This single, eyes-only file in the Secondary Security Database was the only detail there was about her. Because of her work and status, she was strictly protected by a certain department of the Universe Protection Unit. By direct scions of Xanedians, who knew who her master was.

After Buzz had given her a new portion of drink, he hackled and asked directly, "Are you married to my ex-partner, Warp Darkmatter?"

She sat timid in front of him for half a minute. "I am", was then the respond after the cemetery taciturnity.

Lightyear then gradually revealed the case of XR's unpremeditated hacking. The conclusion of his story was a question: "How can that be possible? Darkmatter was supposed to be dead."

"He's not", she sighed and fingered the coffee spoon. "That... declaration of death was... made to protect me and him... by some higher quarters."

"But you didn't seem to know that in the court, did you...?"

Nervously she stirred in her chair and murmured, "No..."

"Look, ma'am, I truly mean no harm to you with this. I am not going to blackmail you because of your private things if that's what you're afraid. Buzz Lightyear would never be guilty of such a thing. Why I invited you here to discuss, was that Warp once was a good friend to me. It was then... a great misery for me to hear that after he had taken a leap to the good side, that he would be dead. I... actually only wanted to ask you, how is he?"

Somewhat a dolorous smile took the corners of Zarah's mouth up. "He's fine. Better than ever has been."

"How is he... I mean that you're his wife, aren't you... how does he treat you?" It seemed now hard for Buzz to make up his words, so many unanswered questions rolled around his brains but there was the lack of verbal expressions.

"I see what you have in mind. No, he's possibly nothing you remember him to be from the years of his serving for Zurg. He... he's the most gentle person I've ever known. He's not just a mate for me, but like a father and a brother at the same time."

"He... saved you from Zurg because he fell in love with you?" Buzz had wanted to know this already seven months ago, but then, that teary woman hitting the dirty factory floor with her fists had not given any retort.

"That's right."

"_When_ did he... krmh...marry...", Buzz gulped in order to get the message out of his mouth, it still appeared to be so inconceivable for him to grasp that Warp would unite with someone. "...when...did he marry you?"

"We... were married already then, when you saw him for the last time", she whispered.

Buzz got his eyebrows up for amazement. "Well that's..." He was about to congratulate her, but could not finish the sentence because of the spinning sentiments.

When? _Where?_ He bethought himself that Zarah had got some kind of holiday, then... she had ended up to Trade World with Darkmatter... had they had some kind of ceremony in that oasis of gangland? No... that was not possible. That must have befallen some place else. 

"Where... is he now?"

Zarah's face turned austere. "I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to tell that."

Buzz sighed and let his regard wander over the figures of the tablecloth. "I understand. It's just that... I would like to meet him after all this time and see with my own eyes that he truly is reformed..."

The wrinkles on her forehead softened. "I can assure you that he has. But it's not under my authority to reveal his place. Certain laws and a submission bind me to cease."

Sadness in his eyes Buzz stared at the hands of Zarah that lied on the table. So... there was no way getting information out of her, how he could get in touch with Warp. It was now a bee in bonnet to him, his stubborn nature did not give him peace. For the while, Zarah took away her jacket as it was quite warm inside there. Buzz, who had kept glowering at her rings, fastened now his vision to the intriguing large bracelets she had. Those valuable-looking implements were decorated with the same kind of details as the rings. He had never seen anything relevant, not in the cultural area of the Galactic Alliance.

"You have interesting ornaments, Mrs. Darkmatter. What are those?"

"They're..." she did not know whether to tell it or not "Let's say that they together correspond an object called wedding ring."

Buzz pricked his ears. Could this be a way to get her slip something about Warp's hideout? 

"So... you always wear those?"

"It's my liability."

"Can I watch one of them a bit more closely?" he asked.

Zarah did not see the plot behind this question and just shrugged, then unlocked the six little clips of the other bracelet, from the elbow to wrist, next offering it to Buzz. "Go ahead."

He carefully studied the original engravings and memorized the symbols that kept repeating in them. For to hide his intentions, he talked as if he would have just been interested in the value of those jewels.

"This is not silver, is it? Something else."

"It's platinum."

Buzz' eyes went wide. So they really had an incredible value. "Wow. You must be getting well with your husband if he affords to buy you this kind of things."

Zarah could not tell where she had really got them, just added: "We get along pretty well. I got my own enterprise and he has his own work. But that's nothing criminal if you think so."

 The clock had galloped forward quite a lot during their slowly and silent conversation. Zarah, who was already tired when she had entered the house, glanced at her timer.

"I must be going, now, Mr. Lightyear. But I have to swear you to secretary about all this. And also your team."

Buzz stood up with a grave expression. "My tongue is sealed. Buzz Lightyear never reveals classified information to unauthorized persons. And so you can rely on my Team. XR is the only bigmouth, but even he can keep his maw shut concerning things like this."

"Thank you", she blurted a bit more relieved.

Soon the door slammed shut behind her and Buzz was left alone. Now, what to do?

...to be continued...


	3. Wandering on the trail of Warp

3. Wandering on the Trail of Warp

  


The dark-blue canvas of the night had been stretched upon the planet. Zarah blundered arduously forwards as if she would have wandered in thick fog. It was the haze of her vision; she could not claim that the streets would have been badly lit.

"Oh me, oh my..." she stammered her mantra, finally getting to her ship, starting then the engines.

The glitter of teardrops made the green in her eyes profound, her deep and sudden misery reflecting fully from her face.

"My life was supposed to be a secret! How could this have happened? How on heck could this have happened?"

Even anger broiled her inners. Hatred towards everything and everybody, although nothing was anybody's fault. Her emotions were so mixed, that they would not be washed clear today, any more.

"I have to get back to Xaneda... but I can't do that, yet..." she cursed aloud to the steering wheel. "I have to warn them...and _him_... but when? The dratted purchase offer is there to mar it all! At the earliest on Friday... it's Tuesday, now. That's too long! Anything can happen before that!"

Zarah found herself speeding without her comprehension. Providentially, she noticed the over-indications of the gauge and got the city speeder slow down its manic verve.

 The main reason for Zarah's apprehension was the security of the Sanctuary. Xaneda, the asylum, had still remained as a 'ghost planet', invaded only by the sands and the heat that had their lugubrious reign there, above the surface. From Buzz Lightyear's eyes, she had seen that finding out the current place of Warp Darkmatter was not an unessential point for him. Who knew what could happen in a few days, if the hacked data would be put into the same bowl with a bit of incautiousness, and mixed up together...? A sheer catastrophe, a roaming black hole of chaos, who knew? The souls of millions, the souls of those millions of hunted, who had attempted to turn to the good... in a terrible danger.

 Back home, Choi dived straight between her bed sheets, crying herself to the lulling somnolence. Friday, oh if only that Friday would come in a breeze, so she would get back to _him_... or maybe she would wake up in the morning and notice it all having been solely a nightmare...

Buzz had been busy after the depart of his worried guest. The clear images in his mind had turned to polygon graphics into his palm book. The symbols of Zarah's bracelets teemed still in front of his eyes, telling their intriguing story, whatever it was, then.

"There must be some kind of connection to the location or culture where she has been given to Warp... or whatever it is, then. I don't believe he has bought them to her. This is something else... normally if we get married, we put a simple gold ring around the ring finger, not gauntlet-looking carved what-ever-they-were... and craters, they were _heavy_!"

He typed and tapped his keyboard.

"Where to start...? Could those symbols be related to some kind of a language that I don't know? English is the common language of the Galactic Alliance... although the solar systems and sectors have their own official parlances, I've never collided with such letters... but they can't be just simple decorations, there must be some meaning behind them... and that meaning might lead me to the traces of Warp."

Darkmatter... he had to meet him, in a way or another. With any cost?

"_With any cost_."

Buzz logged in to the intranet of Star Command, putting then a search machine to quarry through the databases and information sites. After half an hour, the results came.

"Craters and exploding coronas! Nothing! Next search", he grimaced to the computer and hit the login screen of the Alliance Network.

Hours went by... finally the weary figure of Lightyear stood up from his chair and switched off the computer. He had been up way too late, tomorrow at work he would behave merely like some eerie, grey semicircles under his eyes. The scores of finding that Chinese-Hebrew-Gibberish from the networks had been as successful as if he would have been searching for an embroidery handbook from a motor-car repair shop.

---------Next day, early afternoon-----------

 The mighty figure of the Capital Planet Museum was delineated against the grey sky. An irritating drizale filled the air and Buzz accelerated his steps. In his pocket, he fingered his palm book, as if making sure that it definitely was there. He did not know what to do, to whom to turn to. The idea of contacting some person, who studied history and galactic cultures, had come to his mind at work. But where would he find such an intellectual? Not in Star Command HQ, there were only space rangers swarming around, most of them barely knew who had been the president before the current Madame. In addition, Buzz was none kind of a history expert by himself, either. The only berth for such linguistic information that had popped to his mind was the particular museum. Maybe there he would be guided to meet someone who would know...

 Today Lightyear had drawn the attention of his teammates, several times, and not in a positive way. Being so much in his own circles he absent-mindedly had almost collided with a meteorite, while driving 42. In Star Command HQ cafeteria, he had crashed straight to Mira, a fresh chocolate-nougat ice-cream cone in his hand. Well, of course the dessert had ended up to decorate Nova's coiffure. After Buzz had said 'how do you do' to a copy machine, Commander Nebula had sent him home. That is why the ranger was so early on Capital Planet. 

 In the lobby of the museum, Lightyear straightened up himself and walked to the info desk. Behind it sat a mid-aged fat woman polishing her nails red. She gave an arrogant and indifferent regard to Buzz when he hackled for to take her attention.

"The tickets are that way", she noted and pointed at the counter behind him.

"Yes, ma-am, I know, but I don't want to take a tour. I'd like to see some... um a professor. I have..." his sentence was cut short.

"You buy a ticket or go away. This is not a reception, this is a museum. No one needs to see a professor. If the supply of the museum displays is not enough for an average Jack, then please go to see the open positions of history courses in the civil college. Thank you." she puled and turned over her plump hand to see if she had succeeded in spreading the bright-red lacquer on her nails.

"But..." Buzz began.

"We're closed. Good day to you, Mister", the woman looked darkly at him before slamming a hatch over the desk.

 Buzz stood there completely baffled and angry. "I guess I have to buy the ticket. Maybe I find something inside there." He threw a couple of uni-bucks to the clerk and got the entrance opener. Soon he was in a hall filled with a myriad of dusty display stands.

"How am I ever going to find anything is this history labyrinth?" he groaned to himself. He wandered around from room to another, reading silently the signs and semaphores. "...the scrolls of Abragadabrah... Romy -the queen of Planet WillyFogg... Gungan vehicles and fishing tackle from 800th century before the Alliance... the lost map of an unknown temple... the biography of John Lasseter... I'm getting nowhere with this!"

 Four hours later, he was tired out. He had compared the symbols drawn in his palm book to hundreds of old documents and scripts in the display cases. His eyes were aching because of the futile glancing and reading. The years as a space ranger, he had accustomed to physical action, not structinizing smudgings and discoloured manuscripts. Besides, he felt completely stupid in the middle of all this cultural material and different languages, since English was the only language he ever had known.

 Unexpectedly he saw a figure of some old and stoop man waddling next to the back wall of the room. It was a white-skinned alien with grey hair and did not much look like a museum visitor. Buzz got some light into his thoughts and took steps to the man. "Excuse me, sir, but are you a professor?" he shouted.

The old man turned to him rather absent-mindedly. "A professor? Where? Oh... you mean me? Yes, I am a professor."

A wide smile took up the corners of Buzz' mouth. "I'm glad to meet a professor! Could you, sir, help me? I'd have some questions about some symbols of a particular jewel. I wasn't able to find any information over here, but I'm wondering if you could help me?"

The dusty and aged brains of the professor started to hum for sheer excitement. He was a person always willing to help out, if someone asked about history.

"Sure, young man. What are those symbols for?"

"That's what I came to ask. I have them drawn right here in my computer."

"We'll go to my office", the expert of the antiquity answered.

The professor, who had introduced himself being archaeologist-scientist Colossus-Ga'losh, stared long and contemplating at Buzz' notes. He kept meddling his heavy glasses, wrinkling his brows and puffing to himself, thinking hard of the meaning of the gravure.

"I've seen these things somewhere... a very long time ago... talking now in decades... what could it have been..." he slapped his forehead a couple of times.

"Please, I would really need this information. Can you try to figure out, what are these things?" Buzz pleaded.

"This is something that is not common in the area of the Galactic Alliance. No culture here uses this kind of language, that's for sure..." the old man muttered. "I might try to find these over the Galaxy History Database. It should be comprehensive enough to get me to the trails."

Lightyear had never heard of such information source. It was not available in the local Galactic Alliance Web at all.

 Buzz leaned over Colossus-Ga'losh' shoulder to see, what he had found.

"I knew I remembered seeing these somewhere. They are letters of a language called Uxgamagah. This information holo tells that there is a small colony of that unknown race in the solar system of Na-Sula... Too bad that this text doesn't seem to tell where they originally are from... they just settled there a few centuries ago..." the professor read the lines.

"Does it tell anything about the meaning of the symbols? Or where is this Na-Sula?"

"There... at the bottom of the page... it's a link to further information..." Colossus pressed the button and entered a site where was a comprehensive instruction to Uxgamagah.

"Jumping cerements!" he uttered. "Must be a difficult language..." he continued and gaped at the holo. It explained that the literal form of Uxgamagah consisted of partly pictography, partly phonetic symbols. The hieroglyphs were several thousand. So he did a picture search and soon got the mention of the leister-shaped symbol of Buzz' notes. "This is a picture symbol. It stands for 'purified'."

Buzz wrinkled his forehead. "Purified? That's peculiar."

"And here we get some more light... one stands for 'submissive', the next two are some kind of letters for gutturals and... that one that looks like G, is for the syllable 'böö'...

"Can you get anything sensible out of them? Like a sentence?"

"Not exactly... but may I ask where did you see these symbols? It's not a weekday thing to find them."

Buzz hesitated a bit for if not to tell. "They... were decorating the bracelets and rings of one woman."

"That's interesting. Very interesting. How did she look like, what was her race?" the professor got inspired.

"She's a human, like me."

"That's odd... odd indeed."

For half an hour, the men kept still killing time and discussing about the linguistics and the race. Buzz gave his communicator number for the professor, in case he would find something out of the symbols. Then, it was the descending of the marble stairs of the museum, into a heavy black rain, which had grown from the gentler shower during the stay.  

Back home, Buzz flopped down to his living room sofa for disappointment.

"Nothing! I benefited merely nothing about the museum visit," he sighed. "Na-Sula... it is a place far too revealing for a person like Warp to live... I can clearly see that it is some kind of a coulisse, too. But how to explain then the language used in the bracelets of Mrs. Darkmatter... that is another mystery to be put onto the top of the enigma pile. Uxgamagah... blast."

He sat for a few minutes in his position, glaring at the deep shadows the night cast behind the furniture. The next moment, however, was like an illumination to him. He suddenly was able to put all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together, although it still was quite complicated.

"That's it... it is a coulisse. Didn't the professor say that the race, which uses Uxgamagah, had had its origins in some a place unknown? That's it... what else could be the hideout of Warp unless a planet or place like that? Who knows what this oracular race does behind our backs... maybe they hide persons like Darkmatter or relevant, what is anymore so overtaking in this Galaxy... hmm..."

He took his hands up in front of his face and counted with his fingers, thinking, thinking...

"I have to find out, with any cost..." Buzz did not notice that this idea had become an obsession for him.

"What should I do? She must visit the place sometimes, if she wants to meet her dear husband... a possibility to find out where she goes, would be... spying."

His thought was greeted by the shrill scream of his conscience. Spying? Craters, that was not a right thing to do! Buzz Lightyear would never give in to such temptations! Nonetheless... there was this puny tormentor living inside his heart that kept gashing him about the matter of Warp.

_"With any cost..."_

No, the end justifies the means, or so he thought. "What other way is there, but to spy her? He lives out there, somewhere and she goes to him... and I will be there to see that."

 The tinderbox of his idea chamber rubbed vehemently against each other. What to do, what to do? How to spy that double-life living woman? She must be a clever one; too, if she was able to keep her little secrets hidden under her cover... so, analogous cunningness would be needed. In addition, Buzz knew he could not bushwhack G'Deneb; he had his own daily work as the defender of justice.

He would have to hire someone to do the dirty work.

"_Dirty work?__ What are you doing, Lightyear?_ This is wrong, you know it!" his tiny guardian of laws squealed.

For the first time in his life, Buzz smothered this voice, the voice the always had guided him in his missions.

"Hmm... who would do it? Someone competent, used to lurk in the shadows, able to collect every tiny piece of information..."

Crumford Lorack? 

...to be continued...


	4. Roaming thoughts, spying and nervousness

4. Roaming Thoughts, Spying and Nervousness

  


Crumford Lorack... the perfect spy, the prowler who would besiege his offer until the last drop of knowledge was gathered out of the unlucky one. This servant of the underworld had not always willingly done private missions. No, rather much he had been a pest, only with the aid of Mira Nova the latest news of the scum had been collected. Nevertheless, things change as the stairway of time is stepped upwards. In the recent years, Crumford had softened, started to help out Star Command voluntarily, although there was always the heated debate about the right price. His services were not cheap, but very efficient.  

 In the late hours, Lightyear sat still up, fighting the gladiator match against his conscience. Could he do such a thing, to call that creature and ask for his aid?

"I have to. No other choice." With wrinkled eyes, he glared at the opposite wall from his seat for a while, then sighed heavily, taking the route to his vid-phone. A couple of numbers to type... and that it was: a call to Trade World.

"Lorack?" he coughed to the comm. link.

The surprised rat face of the scoundrel appeared to the screen. "What?"

"I have a private job for you. And I will pay well", Buzz answered with a chest tone. The trombone of his conscious kept its hubbub all the time in his brains, but he needed to hush it.

"What kinda gig?" the crook asked suspiciously. It was not quite normal for such a man as Buzz Lightyear to inquire something like that.

"It's easy, easy for you. A little spying. I would do it by myself, but I need to be patrolling with my Team. I pay well, so there should be no problem with that."

"And, no questions. That is my proviso concerning this mission", Buzz noted as if he had been some gangster chief.

In the other end of the comm. device, Crumford agreed to start the job the Captain had offered, yet, with slight distrust.

"You travel now here to Capital Planet, come to my apartment and I'll give you further instructions."

"Now? But how? The flights cost a fortune!"

"I'll pay your flight. Just come now. There may not be much time left and I need this information, what I'm going to ask you to get for me", Buzz concluded and shut down the holo. 

 Next morning, before Captain Lightyear headed to his work, a rodent stood in front of a single-family house door. The dawn was still weak, the eastern sky showed only some glow. It was cold, hazy, just an appropriate cliché-scene for mysterious happenings.

"165. This is it", the tramp grinned and buzzed the doorbell.

"Ah, you. Come in", Lightyear immediately opened slightly the door, hitching his guest in. The visitor was a bit baffled during the first seconds, but when a bunch of fresh uni-buck notes was slammed into his hand, the expression brightened a thousand times more jocund.

"And, as I said, NO questions." Buzz warned Lorack, his arms folded over his chest.

"Okey-dokey, _boss_, what'll I do?" the spy chuckled.

"Here's the deal. There is a woman you need to follow. You write down everything she talks to someone, everything she does, everywhere she goes and especially the info if she _plans_ to go somewhere."

"Oo... a love interest?" Crumford blurted without thinking more.

Buzz almost slapped him, such a tantrum that sentence caused in him. "NO! That's the least thing she is. And I said, no questions! Are you taking this job or not?" he shouted, his forehead crimson red.

"S-Sure, no questions! I take it! Just where do I gotta go?" Lorack stammered back, gringing against the wall.

"Her name is Choi Zarah G'Deneb. The leader of a company called Choice Landanah Inc." Next Buzz offered his worker a palm book. "This is for you, for to make notes. You can keep it. The address and sort of information about your target is coded there, subdirectory 'THX'.

Lorack nodded a couple of times under some pondering. "Gotcha there. I'll go, you can count on me that the mission ain't futile."

The door closed noiselessly behind the rodent, leaving Buzz alone to struggle with his wild-yelling conscience. 

-------------

 Wednesday, Thursday went by as always. The only difference in Zarah's life was the sudden mental pressure in addition of the misery that filled her heart. Her co-workers kept asking why the sudden sad faces she showed. On the other hand, they were granted with no answer from her side. Nervously the hours kept crawling their snail speed... Zarah muttering to herself, "Friday, Friday..."

 Choice Landanah Inc. had a secret guest during that particular Thursday. In the vent holes, nooks and dark corners lurked a rat that noted every little detail the chief executive officer did. Thus, in the evening the skulking was satisfied fully, when the shadow typed the speakings of G'Deneb into his tiny computer. For the moment, he lied low in a vent hole, listening to her conversation with the secretary. Choi was planning to travel somewhere, which was as sure as the fact that photon was the transmitter particle of the electromagnetic force.

"No appointments for next weeks. Direct the paperwork to assistant manager Valaanrasva. The purchase offers go straight in the usual way to Mr. P-Rocyon. Make the deadline for my return undetermined", she spoke severe to the comm. link. Oh, only if she had known that there were two eyes staring at her, from minute to minute...

"Hmm... this may interest Lightyear. I bet this is just the stuff he wan'ed to know", Lorack pondered. "Only if she would mention something about the departure... wherever she is then going to."

But that data never slipped out from between her lips. Concerning that topic, they were more intact than the most powerful seal. The only option the rogue alien had was to follow her every step from a foot distance, to assure, where she was heading. At least, it was clear now, that G'Deneb was going somewhere, to spend an unknown time, out there, beyond infinities. When this was announced to Lightyear through the comm. link, the Captain saw that his opportunity had come. With determination, he ordered Lorack to snoop around some more, follow the target to her home, assure when she would leave. Then would be the time for Buzz to let his ship engines hum, too, en route to pursue the Lady of mysteries.

------------

Friday morning... today it would happen... today... today...

Buzz had not slept an inch last night. Although there was such a lack of rest, he was not fatigued at all. No, moreover as nervous as a claustrophobic person locked in a wardrobe. He wandered around the living room, along the same circle, from hour to hour. It was a miracle that the carpet was not worn through.

"Now Lorack is there... in _her_ garage... just a peep in the communicator and it is my turn to do some action..."

He was fully dressed to his space suit, his ship put into shape, loaded with food rations and water for several days. The only thing he needed was the signal.

"_Beep_."

The Captain was to topple to his own legs. He ripped the communicator lid open and panted into it, "Did she wake up?"

"Yes. Doing breakfast... not yet leaving. You still got time. I make an announce when she comes to tease me here..."

"Fine. When she leaves, you can go. The mission is accomplished, then. You got your money."

"Righto."    

 Next... Buzz needed to get free from work. If he was going to follow the woman, he could not do it unless he had a legal semester. No one in the universe could tell, how many ages he would have to race with Mrs. Darkmatter. Therefore, with somewhat trembling fingers he dialled the number of Commander Nebula, for to begin a vid-phone session. Soon the face of the moustached man appeared to the screen.

"Lightyear! Good morning, what is it?" Zeb asked.

"Uh... Sir, I'd need to ask for some free from work, I'd have..." Buzz started, his voice almost stammering.

But the Commander only seemed to be delighted about this issue. "No, you go ahead and keep some holiday. I have been watching you and I definitely think you need some rest. I'm glad you noticed it finally yourself, too! Craters!" he laughed.

Buzz stared back at him his eyes round. Was it so easy? And his commanding officer _did not even ask where he was going?_

"Thank you, Commander, I..."

"No need to thank me, you go on to Mahombus 6 and keep a relaxing break! You got yourself three weeks free, go and enjoy it!"

The comm. link was switched off.

Sweat trickled along the forehead of Buzz. He had a holiday, this easily?  "Phew... at least I didn't have to lie. It's already like walking on burning coals, because of my broken morals... I swear I'll do nothing like this ever! Never ever!" Sighing he wiped the cold drops away from his hairline.

"Now I got free from work. No one will wonder anything. Commander takes the care of putting my team in missions; they can survive without me for a while. And that's it, I am hardly gone for a very long time."

 After half an hour, his wrist communicator chirped joyfully.

"Lorack here. She's getting on the road." a voice whispered through the ether.

Buzz' whole being jerked. Now? Now!

"You attached the little transmitter under her vessel?" Buzz inquired.

"Sure. Sits there like a chewing gum. She won't notice it."

"Good."

----------------

 Exhaling deep and grievously, Zarah warmed up the engines of her personal space ship. Her city speeder was nothing compared to the size of it, this was a vessel manufactured in Xaneda, a gift for her from a special person. Its mighty figure sleeked almost without a sound out of her garage, or more strictly saying private launch deck. Its metal surface shining in the morning sun, it turned about, rose up towards the highnesses, soon leaving the busy and life-swarming Capital Planet behind.

"So... we got 48 hours futile time. Stupid distances." she conjured up the words in her despair, the despair of knowing that her dearest might be endangered.

"Maybe I should not worry... but if... what if something leaks? Who knows, any more...?"

She sniffed teary, snapping the autopilot on. Her ship had reached the outer spheres of her coulisse home planet. The computer would be ready to activate the jump gate to hyperspace as soon as the gravitational field of the particular planet would be too weak to hinder that action.

 Behind her in a suitable interval soared the ship of Buzz Lightyear. He monitored the travel advance through an energy reader device... which got its indications straight from the little widget that was attached to Zarah's ship.

"Wherever she is then going, I am going to find it out... and finally meet my lost friend, Warp Darkmatter." 

-------Two days later---------

The dark silhouette of Dreadnaught was hard to distinguish against the black background. The only way to catch it with one's eyes was to structinize the absence of stars on its spot. The imminence of evil forces was there to haunt the peaceful Milky Way, once again.

 A tall man dressed in purple robes strolled like a bogey in the immense throne room of the ship. From minute to another, he uttered disappointed groans and snarls to everybody around him.

"No new evil plots? No evil email for me? Where is this universe going if there is such a lack of evilness?" Zurg lasered the nearest grub with his finger, continuing the senseless bemoaning.

"But Sir Duke of Dreadfulness, it's the lunch break! All the workers are in the dining room! That's why the Imperial Wile Hall is empty!" the charred lackey whined.

"Then why are you here?" the Emperor fretted.

"I ate already!"

"Then go and make me a malicious manoeuvre!" The loudspeaker of Zurg's helmet distorted into a fierce grimace.

The beetle got his little legs fast and vanished into the shaded entrance corridor.

 Nothing new under and over the suns, for Zurg. The usual dogfights with Star Command kept going as evermore, Lightyear ruining his every move towards the Galactic Alliance. In contrast to that, the Emperor had still expanded his reign in Zeta Quadrant, as the Empire collected more allies with dark promises (those were not necessarily intended to keep, because they were _dark promises_). But somehow the Empire was not that sturdy as it should have been. No. That was because when the octopus gathered more tendrils from one side, they were cut away and sliced from the other direction. Star Command's defence against his might was growing, they even dared to attack his quarters, nowadays.

 There was one major reason, why the Zurgean realm was afflicted. There was the shortage of a skilled henchman -or moreover an apprentice. Oh the times when Warp Darkmatter had been there to help Zurg with his quick wit and cunning intelligence. He had been the perfect one... until the Emperor had designated him _the one mission_... that was supposed to bring a mighty, new energy producing form to the whole Dark Empire.

"But what did he do? Failed it, failed it with the worst possible means! Fell in love with his prey, deceived me, deceived the dark side... Quasars, how did he do such poor choices? He was a man with wicked talent, heart as cold as solid hydrogen... cynic, self-serving, my best worker ever! But now he, that cursed Judas, is cosmic dust... how did he ever let the darkness wander away from his heart? That is something I shall never comprehend..." the Emperor meditated while he sat down to his throne. Staring at the yellow, gigantic izzard decorating the opposite wall, he continued his roving thoughts.

"That is my symbol, the sign of my might, the might of Zurg... but who shall be there if I pass away... the age will take me someday... although no one knows me being just a normal mortal. Therefore... I have to find an apprentice. Sooner or later. But there has been no prominent candidates this far... only..." The red glow in the eye sockets of his helmet turned distant, letting the glare fade.

"..._Lightyear_... if only, if only... If only he could be turned... but he is the favourer of that idiotic Alliance, oh why, oh why. If his skills and zeal would be canalised to serve the dark side, what a glorious future there would be! The evilness would rejoice, the black holes and white dwarfs unite to the sinister symphony..."

Zurg woke up from his dreams to the creak of his own fingers.

"But that hardly happens. Whatever I try, whatever I attempt, I will never get him to my side..." he cursed. "I shall not tolerate that! I shall try... maybe I should turn to plot more against him than the Galactic Alliance, so one day he would find himself on Planet Z, ready for a little _manipulation_..."

The izzard on the opposite wall kept arresting Zurg's eyes.

"It should have been that from the beginning on! Why did I ever let him join Star Command? A prominent rookie... and what did he turn out to be? Why was I not there to hinder it... maybe the power of the dark side was not enough strong in me, yet, to understand, what kind of menace he would come to be..."

A peep of one grub burst his thought bubble.

"WHAT?" Zurg bellowed.

"Your evilness, there is a ship detected in the near space..."

The Emperor got some inspiration into his gloomy thoughts. "Where? Where is it going?"

"Come and see, we are not sure, what it is."

 At the monitor of the control room, Zurg inspected the holo that showed a small vessel gliding in the vacuum. It seemed to be without a proper destination, or then it was attempting to land, because the inertial engines were on.

"Hmm... does not look like a Star Command personnel ship... but what would anyone do here..." he fingered his helmet.

 The fact was that Dreadnaughts current hovering site was near Xaneda. It had no significant purpose to be there, Zurg was only lightly interested about the activity in the mining moon, but nothing more remarkable.

"That may be some private vehicle that is heading to the mines of Deneveria. Well... snap on the magnetic grid and suck the ship in, whatever it is, then. Maybe we can profit something, if we examine the crew a little bit... Jim-kraken-dandy..." the Emperor gloated when thinking about a coming torture session.

"You get the aliens out of it when it is in, put them in the jail chamber to wait. I'll check them later", were his last words.

What Zurg did not know, was that the particular ship was Buzz Lightyear's private vehicle and just dived out from the hyperspace.

to be continued........ 


	5. The prey of the dark side

5. The Prey of the Dark Side

Xaneda was as quiet as always. The burning-hot sand played its dull game among the rocks and rare vegetation. A lonely ship flew quietly over the surface. Only there was the fact that no one could see nor detect it. A shield generator that interfered all electromagnetic radiation, protected the traveller from not being spotted. Generally, the vehicle was invisible for any outsider. Only the Xanedian radar devices were able to scan it, announcing to the controllers and guards all over in the hidden cities that a member of the culture was landing to the sheds of the unknown.

  Zarah had tuned the shield on, before jumping out of hyperspace, as always. Therefore, the landanah digger community that lived in the second moon, neither anyone else around, could not see her. But she did not feel safe, from some time on, she had sensed that there was a pair of external eye organs watching her, as if there had been a spook on her heels. Whatever it was, she could not comprehend it. 

 With blundering steps, Choi descended from the cockpit. The main flight deck of Xatagah was completely empty. Tarnished lamp crystals were the only souls that cast some live among the metal figures of the ships.

"I have to find him!" she slapped her forehead and opened the heavy lock-gate that leaded to the accommodation wings. After that was a half-mile walk along a tunnel. Rambling thoughts were her company during the accelerated travel. How would she choose her words for to tell the whole thing to Warp? 

"Am I too worried? It is just four persons that know about this... but still..."

There was time to think about these issues. The long corridor was the dullest thing in the Universe, according to Zarah. And also a bit scary. She had wandered it from end to end dozens of times, but never got used to the shadows that were caused by the alcoves and joints. And the nastiest thing was that she always had to travel alone there.

 A hundred metres until the last door was left when something peculiar happened. Suddenly the woman felt someone grapping her tight backwards and as its intention, started to drag her to one of the niches. Her shrill scream was choked by a large palm that was put over her mouth. A couple of seconds she fought back the unknown terror, but as she was finally pinned against the wall backwards, a familiar, deep voice whispered at her ear: "Shht, babe li'l... it's me..." The hand was taken away from her mouth and apparently the whole arm that owned it, was wined around her. A pair of lips began to caress her cheek ardently.

 Hot tears appeared into her eyes. She knew perfectly who was this 'attacker' and that made the sorrow even bitterer. How she was supposed to tell her bad news now that Warp there gave her his tokens of affections? His lips turned to kiss hers. Only when heavy tears trickled along her cheeks, he stopped and silently turned her around to face his aghast expression. Zarah did not usually cry in his presence. Never had she cried in his arms after the one night over seven months ago, when he had picked her up from that dirty lane on Capital Planet. There was something not right, now.

"What is it, Za? Why are ya crying?" he looked straight into her eyes.

"I..." she could not get the words out of her dry mouth.

"D... did I... hurt you somehow...?" he asked horrified, as if she had out of the blue lost her love towards him.

She nestled against his chest and sobbed: "No! T-That's not what I meant... please take me back into your embrace... I... I h-have to... t-tell you something..."

Stammering and sniffing she narrated the happenings of the last days. Warp, who had been so eager to see her after two lonely weeks, so happy to know that he could hold her again, turned very grave. He was about to loose her from his arms, but saw now that she literally searched for an asylum in his enfold. So he pressed her tighter against his massive chest, but talked now in a severe tone. He did not scold her, of course it was not her fault, but wanted to know, how much information she had given to Buzz Lightyear about him.

"I... I d-did not tell him anything t-that could make him know where ya are..."

"What did he ask about me?"

"He... mainly... w-wanted to k-know that... ya were all right."

Warp felt very odd. He never had thought Buzz would ask anything like that.

"He did?" he stared at her with round eyes.

"He did."

 A green light beeping in Warp's wrist communicator stopped their hugging.  After pressing it to hear the incoming message, both Zarah and he winced.

"Boss, betta come here immediately! Whole Xaneda is in the state of emergency. An unknown private ship has been detected in the near space of Xaneda, as well as Dreadnaught!"

No time to explanations was there now. Darkmatter gripped his wife, put her on his shoulder and ran the rest of the distance to the Site B control centre. 

Warp's familiar guards Neder and Eisley stood flabbergasted in front of a large radar monitor screen. Warp rushed in.

"Boss, the common reflector shield of Xaneda's cities has been activated." Eisley blurted while twisting all kinds of levers and typing buttons for to get the nanoradar satellite scan better.

Warp was not any more only the leader of the tech stock, but had gained vastly more power and might since he was lastly heard about. The Eldest of Xatagah had granted him with many responsibilities, among others handling a part of this community's security issues.

"Now it should be all right with the energy shield, no outside technology detector can pass that. But we need the screen better, I want to see what's going on out there. There should be no transportations to Deneveria what I've heard from listening the Star Command's frequencies. So this has to be something else." Darkmatter rushed back and forth the control room, trying to get sense to the situation.

"Did you say that Dreadnaught was there, too?" Zarah put her words in the middle of all this.

"Yes, Lady Darkmatter. But we're not sure, yet. But according to the size and the alloy type the holo indications give this far, it is most possibly that vehicle." Neder politely answered. Zarah was a very respected guest in the city, and not least because of being owned by Warp. She was treated mainly like some royal person.

Meanwhile Eisley had got the scan holo clearer. In front of the spectators opened an odd and sad view.

"T-Thah... that's L-Lightyear's n-new...ss...!" Zarah stuttered and got her sentence not finished.

"Bursting quasars! You were being followed! By him!" Warp gasped.

That was not all the image gave as a presentation. No, behind Buzz' ship was delineated The Imperial Ghost, gradually taking the poor hunk of metal totally into its control. Zurg used the magnetic force field generator to swallow the tiny vessel. A hatch opened in the side of it and Buzz as his captive, vanished inside the Leviathan of the Space. What is more, as soon as it had devoured its booty, its acceleration engines started to roll, letting it glide silently away from Xaneda, to the black vacuum.

 All the spectators of the holo screen were timid. After a minute Zarah broke the silence with a teary inhale. She turned about without saying a word and slouched towards the door.

"Z-Za?" Warp blurted, wrinkling his forehead. Tapping at her, he swung the little woman around.

"It was all my fault! Just give me a cuff on the ear and send me away!" she cried as if she had lost her reason.

"Fault? What fault? Babe, sweet li'l babe, what on asteroids are ya jabbering about?" Warp stared at her.

"I shouldn't have left Capital Planet so heedlessly. I should've noticed that I was followed. Now Buzz knows 'bout Xaneda. Then Zurg gets him. Then he knows all. I'm a doomed, cursed person..." she gave an outburst of teary rage. Choi was about to leave the control room with a fast run, but did not in her state observe where the doorframe was. She collided with it, hit her forehead and got her eyes dizzy. Next, she was lying on the floor on her hinterland.

 In his large living-room, Warp sat on a sinking sofa, Zarah put nearly invisible to rest under his arm. He attempted to mollify her and give the best words to tell that it was not her fault. It took her somewhat long to accept the truth that she could have not prevented it anyhow, how many ifs and yets she ever had repeated.

"What are we gonna do?" a sniffle came somewhere under his sleeve.

"I don't know, toots tiny... At least this time the danger concerning Xaneda was avoided. But we dunno what happens tomorrow. The purple Space Beacon has been quiet a long time, but now... no one knows."

"What about Lightyear?" Zarah raised her regard to meet his severe eyes.

Warp swallowed a couple of times. That was a topic he always shirked. But now there was no loophole away, the pondering of it could not be avoided. So... Why was it so awkward for Warp? Because he was in a way indebt for Buzz. If he had been still his old rebellious self, he would have given a piece of rotting meteoroid to the whole thing, but now the situation was quite diverse. The obligation was about the formal amnesty he had been given a generous six months ago. The results had been immense; he could freely walk in disguise almost anywhere because he did not have to be afraid of an army of space rangers after him. Zurg's bounty hunters had been scattered who knows where because everybody had the illusion that he was dead. Well, of course so the space rangers thought, too, but because of Buzz Lightyear's efforts, his reputation was purified in everyone's eyes.

"Yeah... I know. He's possibly getting zips and zaps in Zurg's agony bubble... and someone shoul' get him outta there", he sighed.

"Who else knows about this? I mean... they don't use that kinda scan radars in the mining moon as we have here. Some 500 folks there concentrate nearly only on the landanah processes. Most possibly Dreadnaught was even outside the range of their detecting devices."

Warp gazed long at the table in front of him. Zarah rested supply against his chest, letting him cogitate whatever he needed to. His fingers wandered among her locks, giving him the tinkering job he always did when he reflected something.

"So... we're the only ones who know... And that makes us eye-witnesses... and that makes us kinda responsible of what we just saw..." he monotonically put the syllables into words.

"And there's the risk that... Zurg picks out all the data out of Captain Lightyear's head... that you're alive, hiding..."

"That's it. It's up to us to get that Lightsnack outta Zurg's claws... That's what at least you're thinking." he looked down to her, "Aren't ya?"

But she bowed her head and timorously answered: "You're the master here. I'm not the one that decides this thing."

Warp's face twisted into a pitiful grimace. He pressed Zarah against his chest as hard as he had the courage. "D-Don't call me that way, li'l thing. I've said it a dozen times before. I-I know that I... but still. In your heart you still seem to be afraid of me, is that it? I know I'm the same huge scary alien that once chased you there in that moon, but ya know that I'd never put a leg across your road..." His sentence he concluded by kissing her long and fierily.

 They sat quietly for half an hour. What Warp did, it was only meditating. He felt truly bothered knowing it was up to _him_ to solve the whole situation. What could he do...? In every case, it would be jeopardizing his own life now because of that captured space ranger... but was there an alternative? Buzz had to be released out of the Emperor's clutches, if he, Zarah and the planet wanted to maintain their safety. Xaneda would not be long considered as a Space Sahara, if Zurg would get the important clue, why Lightyear was following G'Deneb.

Finally the blue alien decided to polish his brainwork.

"So... we're both leaving to Capital Planet tomorrow. Ya try to catch that old macho Nebula and tell him whaddya know. I'm staying on the background and make a resurrection if necessary... phew, that's for bein' a zombie..."

Zarah leered at him. "Are ya sure? That's what we should do... but... you're putting yarself in quite a danger! It's not a problem for me to go in front of the Commander, but you... are ya sure that ya want to return from 'beyond the tomb'?"

"Who the blasting proton would be better to give advice how to get to planet Z to save that RightLight? The Big Izzard may have changed the local plan a bit since I habited that joyous wormhole, but the basics are the same. And... as Buzzy gone, Star Command doesn't have another as skilled ranger to do his job. Besides, that guy hardly can save himself. So, then steps ol' Warpy from the background... one of the top graduates of the Space Ranger Academy."

Zarah could not give counterarguments, since she knew that he was completely right with his semi-egoistic words.       

---------------

 Whatever happened to Buzz Lightyear? He had steered, in a curious state of mind, his ship towards the aim where Zarah's vessel was going. By tracking her energy levels in hyperspace, he had been able to spy her from a suitable distance. She would have of course spotted him, if she had been monitoring the warp energy diagrams during her flight. Nevertheless, so much was rambling around her mind on those moments, that she had not studied so strictly such random data.

 But Lightyear... for his amazement, he had suddenly lost the reconnoitring indications. Banging the buttons, he had given the computer an umpteen instructions for to find the lost energy readings, but in vain. Zarah had snapped on the hindering shield generator that was used in all Xanedian ships during the landings and left-offs in the near space of the asylum planet. Therefore, thinking that she had possibly left hyperspace, Buzz had activated the jump gate and returned to the four-dimensional world. For his surprise, he found himself at the edges of the Alliance, near the one mining moon. Now he was deadly sure that he had lost her tracks completely.

 But what he had not noticed, was Dreadnaught. Just like his 'prey', he had not paid attention to some details of the holo screen. Only for the moment, when the functions of the ship went slack, he understood being under the flux of some magnetic field. A vessel was pulling him towards it. He got sweat flooding along the back of his neck, when making the conclusion of the laming Colosseum. Zurg.

 His puny craft was soon squatting on the flight deck of the imperial flag-ship. A hissing noise reached his ears when the hornets melted the door open, soon invading the cockpit. The space ranger was violently clung from his arms by two droids and dragged away, towards the pharynx of malevolence.

 A few hours the ranger was kept in a brig, before a brain-pod came to register the captive. Zurg had had something more interesting to do for the while, he had not namely been aware that the loot of the day was his greatest enemy, Buzz Lightyear himself. The secretary brain-jar got his wheels rolling for hurry, after he had in passing looked over the man sitting behind the bars.

In front of his master, he hastily clarified: "Your dark gloriousness, uh... we have something extraordinary, here..."

"What? Did I not say that I want to play Super-Multi-Hyper Mario in peace? My agent just hacked the game from Norbert Klerm's intranet and..." the Emperor let a murderous glance flash towards the minion.

"Uh... I apologise, but Buzz Lightyear is..."

"What about Lightyear? We do not need that pest here, now. Always he shall mess my giga-excellent evil plans! Always he! He, he, he! Why not _me_ instead? Me, me, _me_!" the Emperor snarled.

"But Sir... the captive..."

"Yes, I said that I shall pick his or hers brains when we are back home, embracing the sweet, evil air of Planet Z. Now leave me alone."

"But... the captive is Buzz Lightyear!" the unlucky henchman finally got out of his speaking organs.

Zurg's response was something totally rave. He turned around in his chair so that the whole piece of furniture was twisted into a shapeless wreck. He got his laser regard flare in sheer amazement, as if he had heard the most unbelievable news of the century. Well, it was, for him.

"WHAT? _Lightyear_? Why did not you say that three hours ago when the ship was sucked in here? Now, bring him to me, take two hornets and order them to zap right ahead if he resists!" 

 After half a minute, the ranger stood proud and rough in front of the Dark Lord. Zurg sat in his throne, fingering his loudspeaker very confident.

"Well well! Lightyear! Well what a pleasant _rendez-vous_!" He was so much delighted about the happenings that did not even remember to ask WHY Buzz had been alone in the near space of Xaneda.

"The pleasure's all yours", Buzz grunted back.

"Yes, that was very kindly said! Hmhahhahhahhaaah..."

The ranger glared at his nemesis under his black brows. "What do you want from me? If you're planning to kill me, then do it already."

The villain shrugged in sudden astonishment, rising up from his seat, leading his steps to Buzz. "Kill you? Why would I do that? I shall have a lot better use for you as a living person, rather than a corpse."

Lightyear was surprised, too. The only thing he would expect Zurg to do him, was to finish him off and fast. Alternatively, at least torture him. "I know your plans", he muttered suspiciously.

"Oh no, you do not," the villain sneered and did a small movement with his hand.

For the same moment, Buzz' eyes blackened.

A brain-pod appeared in front of Zurg to take his orders. "Yes, my Evil Emperor?"

"Take Lightyear to the dressing rooms. Demolish every part of that space ranger uniform he has on, including that stupid hood. Take a fresh, starched robe, ask the dressmaking department to make it smaller, if it will not fit, then put it on him. Guard that man, and if he comes conscious before the bourn, make sure that you will bring him back to the worlds of dark dreams. Back on Planet Z, I shall give further instructions."

The hornets hauled the indolent ranger away, leaving The Emperor chortle alone in his hall. "Mwahhaahhhhhaaaaahhhhhhhaaah! He is mine, MINE, mine! Ruhahhhaahhhaaahhhhhhaaah! MINE!" 

...to be continued......


	6. The journey to the darkness shall begin

6. The Journey to the Darkness Shall Begin

The early morning sun goldened the sand surface of Xaneda. One of the community houses in the planet core was not that cheerful. Warp had prepared himself and Zarah to leave the planet as early as possible, but the time and randomness were there always to vitiate one's great plans. Precise twenty minutes before the Darkmatters would have stepped in their ship, an announcement via the Xatagah comm. channels was given that all traffic to and from Xaneda would be prohibited because of some security issues. A defection in the upper layer of the lock-energy shield had been detected yesterday during the short emergency state. What else did it mean but a work spell for Warp? With plaintive moods, he and Choi had to shift the depart towards the future.

 What the final blueprint was, it had been concluded in the small hours. Because neither Zarah nor Warp trusted the radio frequency comm. devices, they would -or at least she would- have to be on the spot to recite the sad saga of Buzz to proper persons. He had suggested that she would at first contact privately some of the Team Lightyear members, then arrange a meeting in her house. No sense was there to visit Commander Nebula in his Star Command HQ office, since who knew what kind of spy widgets The Evil Emperor had installed there via his spies, in the recent times. But... all this would happen only when the eye-witnesses were ready to leave the scene of crime.

---------------

 Black and violet... a dreadful combination, as a rugged space ranger might say. Conversely, that was the first illusion the eyes of Buzz Lightyear caught. Long time he had been beyond the border, in a world that was filled with chaotic tumult of thoughts, without any sense, without any reason. But now it was all purple and murky. As his mind gradually wandered to the reality, he felt the limpness of his body parts, and the rim of pain that squeezed his head.

"Uhhh..." he moaned a little bit and attempted to move in his position. No use for that action. Between his half-dream the brains began to process the situation, slowly, but surely, "I can't move... I'm stuck... it's dark... no, it's violet... limpness... violet... Z..." That was the first object his eyes attached to. A big yellow Z-letter on the opposite wall.

"Zurg!" he startled awake and finally understood where he was. He sat in a chair of some kind, his wrists, chest and ankles tied with metal bands to the seat. His sleeves were wrapped up and a couple of needles were attached to him, running miscellaneous liquids into his vessels.

Buzz gasped with terror, staring at the complex he was put to sit in. "W-What have they done to me?" The regard reached the suit. He had no longer his own space ranger uniform, but a dark-violet robe on -with a shiny buckle attached to the collar, decorated with a golden, curlicued izzard. Neither had he the thermal hood, but his black hair drooped over his eyes. This one obsessive anxiety of his got him nervous, as always.

"Oh, no! Everybody's seen my hair!" But then the sense streamed back to him, making the ranger notice that this little detail was not the end of the world. More strictly speaking, his current state was closer to that.

Fighting violently against the imprisoning chair, and yelling in flaming anger, he caused some life around him. He namely was in a chamber, yet empty on that moment, with a door that had an electronic grating. A lonely brain-pod walking in the corridor came to see, what the hullabaloo was about.

"Let me out of here! What have you done to me?" the voice of Lightyear echoed back to the hearing organs of this one minion, who rushed to tell his Master that the captive had awakened.

 Buzz did not need to be alone quite long, until the menacing figure of the Emperor stood in the open doorway of Lightyear's chamber.

"Ahh, Lightyear! So, we have finally finished our little nap. Did you have sweet dreams?" Zurg teased him. The Emperor achieved an arrogant frown from his side.

"What have you done to me? Why have you brought me here?" Buzz muttered behind his together bitten teeth.

"Oh, yes. Part of my hyper-intelligent plan! It is a lot more intriguing to tell you it now than yesterday!" Zurg took a self-satisfied smile and approached his captive.

"Why don't you just kill me, already, and stop this insane play of yours!"

Zurg snickered to himself for a while and then came right at Buzz' chair. He put a clawed hand on his shoulder, beginning his harangue.

"No, Lightyear. My intention is not to kill you. See, I have had this slight problem since I lost one promising henchman, also known as Warp Darkmatter. Well... he gained what he deserved, after deceiving me, although quite in a conventional way... blasted to ashes by a skilled hornet..." he kept a pause and walked to the other side Buzz' seat.

"Since those unfortunate happenings after... hmm... how much was it? Grub! Bring me the calendar!"

A lackey whizzed to him with a palm book that showed a date, a red circle around it.

"...since 17. 7. 3006, precisely 08:30:00, local time of the Zurgean Empire, when I understood with my ultimate IQ that my henchman had left me, I've been searching for _a new apprentice_..."

Buzz' eyes widened when he comprehended that Zurg was talking about him.

"...and, who could be the best one for that job, if not the pride of Star Command... the famous, heroic Space Ranger called Buzz Lightyear!" Zurg grinned to him and then left a long, hollow, evil cackle fill the air.

Buzz was in the ultimate rage. He wriggled in the chair and let a curse fly out of his mouth. "I'll never join you! How much you would ever torture me, I am NOT dealing with evil businesses!"

Zurg flitted back to him with a naughty smile. "Oh, no! How could I be so heartless, that I would torture you? You shall follow me voluntarily!" The sentence was ended to the clack of his fingers he clapped enthusiastically together.

"What... do you mean...? I won't..."

"Well, now it shall be the time to tell you! I will turn you into me! With some simple methods, the virtuous, do-gooder Lightyear is going bye-bye..."

"You're a monster, Zurg!" Buzz spat.

"I know."

"I'll never, NEVER join an evil android that killed my father!" Buzz yelled, thunderbolts flashing in his eyes. If the fetters had not kept him on his spot, he would have been wrestling on the floor with his enemy, now.

"Whahahhaahhahhhhhaaa! An evil android! That was the best prefix I heard today, definitely!" Zurg wiped a fake tear away from the eye socket of his helmet, "Oh, and what comes to your dear father, it was a long time ago... he was just obstructing me and deserved nothing, but to be put to the book of distant memories... That person, your pitiful, pitiful and pathetic poppa means nothing to me. No need to discuss about him." 

"Why did you kill him?" Buzz glowered back.

"Why? I said clearly, in plain and refined English, that he was something retarding the glorying raise of my Empire." The topic seemed to be somewhat awkward for Zurg and therefore he decided to shift it to the destiny of Buzz. "Yes, where were we? Oh... we were discussing about the intriguing fact that there shall be a new member in the dark side, after some time."

"As I said, I won't join you!"

"Oh, but you will. You will understand the power of the dark side, how much better it is to let you be the servant of it. I am trying to free you mind, Buzz -if I may call you so- but I can only show you the door. You are the one that has to walk through it."

"You won't get far with this. My mind won't be broken with your twisted methods! And there will be an army of space rangers assaulting this planet, by tomorrow morning; your Empire will be history!" Buzz let his spit fly in the air. He was deadly sure that Team Lightyear would immediately gather a group to free him.

Zurg gave an amused chuckle. "But what if no one knows that you are here? Do you think in that little brain-pan of yours, that I would immediately call and tell your silly Commander that you are here as my guest? No! And, do those other rangers really care so much about you, that they would come here to face my arsenals and hornets?"

Buzz went silent. He had not expected this. A cold fear began to shiver along his spine.

"Oh, and soon you shall learn, that it is a lot more profitable to live in my palace, than be a mindless slave of Star Command, only serving some corrupted commanders and their myrmidons. Here, after you have learned to obey me, is your future. A glorious, dark future."

"I serve life! I don't serve the darkness and chaos!"

"Life... which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder and chaos. And now... the journey to the dark side shall begin!" With a hideous grin on his helmet, Zurg blurted a couple of words to a comm. link on the wall. After a few minutes, something clackering rolled along the corridor that leaded to the current chamber.

"Do you hear that, Mr. Lightyear? That is the sound of inevitability." The Emperor turned about to achieve a pair of grubs pushing a flivver. It was filled with strange-looking bottles, needles and surgery implements.

"Ahh, straight from my laboratory of naughtiness! An old but efficient method to use tranquillizers, some medicines and liquids to turn one's mind to serve me."

Buzz' face distorted into a fearful grimace. Zurg in front of him mixed something into a hypodermic needle and then flashed his red eyes towards Buzz.

"There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. By tomorrow, you will know the path... and after that, you're ready to walk it, towards the dark side."

There and then, the Emperor stuck the needle into Buzz' wrist vessel, letting the whole portion of the drug flow into his inners. After a few minutes more, a weird weariness began to fill the body and mind of the Captain. When Zurg noticed his pupils getting increased and his head beginning to droop, it was the time for the Emperor to leave his captive alone.

"It is working. Let us see, how much there is resistance left in you, by tomorrow morning. Farewell, Lightyear. I shall make you a new name, since there is the need to think, how the new apprentice of Emperor Zurg will be called."

With these words, Zurg blew about away from the room, letting the poor ranger alone with his beginning hallucinations.

 The expression on Zurg's amorphic helmet did become quite much more serious when he had sat back down to his throne. Snapping tart, he sent every minion away from the room. He wanted to get engrossed in his thoughts, at least for a while. The question of Buzz' dead father had raised bitter memories into his mind.

"I shall get rid of the relics, as I always have been able. It was not supposed for him to bring that nauseous topic forth... curse you, Buzz Lightyear."

Stirring in his seat, he attempted to find a better position.

"Z. Z. Lightyear was nothing but a pest on my way... a weak-minded and depressed man. His existence needed to be wiped away. He is gone, why to pry into rotten graves of some pathetic history... But, back to Lightyear. He is a knotty thingie, so much bathing in his braveness and sense of justice. It can take for a while, before he shall be turned... but that will happen, oh, yes. Only what I regret the most, is that I did not have the savvy to start to arrange this before... I trusted, I fool, trusted Darkmatter!"

 Canvassing there those pungent topics, Zurg felt very burging inside his complicated costume, as if the air would have turned to sheer carbon dioxide. Coughing he stood up and hovered to the private men's room of the floor. There, he fingered his collars and let the lock system of his helmet open. As he had pulled the mask off, there was the perfect comprehension, why he had been in the verge of suffocation. His hair was wet with sweat, as well as his neck and forehead. Wiping there his face into a tissue, he came to peep into the mirror.

"The age is taking me..." He slowly grazed his grooved cheek with his fingertip. "I am not immortal and I need someone to continue my reign, just like I was there to continue the glory of _my Master..._"  A heavy sigh filled the room.

"Sure I was once young and full of the force of life... zeal to follow and be obedient to my teacher... who leaded me to the dark side... However, he has died... and I am there to follow him also into the abode of the dead, where is no thought, no achievement... that is why I need Lightyear to get it all into his hands... But he is mine, now. Do not worry any more, Zurg."  
  


......to be continued........


	7. The rescue plan

**7. The Rescue Plan**

------Capital Planet, four days later------------

"Rrrrinngggg..." a doorbell gave a dissonance.

 The night had just fallen upon the suburb where Mira Nova had her dwelling. Zarah stood behind her front door, waiting impatiently someone to open up. The lights were on inside the house, so there must have been some alien life around.

After a few minutes of waiting, a tacit noise came from inside.

"She is at home... I just hope she'd open up and fast." Choi creaked her teeth, getting testier. Well, when the door finally opened, she got her hackles up for a moment because of the view. Someone tall dressed in a pink bathrobe, face all over covered with green slime stood in front of the engineer.

"Uh... I'm searching for Miss Mira Nova..." Zarah exhaled and attempted to get her pulse back.

A familiar voice came from under the green mess. "Good evening, Miss G'Deneb! Obviously you didn't recognise me... I'm having my daily face pack to give freshness to my skin! Well, what brings you here?"

Zarah eyed Mira a bit suspiciously. "Eh... Yes... that is possibly very refreshing... but, I have something important to discuss. May I come in?"

"Why, sure. It's been a bit silent for us since our Captain went to his holiday..." Mira chirped and leaded Zarah in.

Even more suspiciously Choi leered around when she saw the decoration of Mira's living room. Everything was pink, from the wallpapers to the furniture. The window was framed with magenta curtains that had big, white spots on them. The other side wall had a huge shelving which was filled with porcelain dogs, big and small. In the corner, beside a holo-telly jutted a piece of modern art, something that resembled a cross between Mickey Mouse and Coca Cola bottle. Mira bustled among all this, putting tea cups on the living-room table. Her regard attached to Zarah, who was still gaping eyes round all this fancy.

"Do you like my decoration? I designed it myself, with a little taste of Tangean elegancy!" 

Choi did not quite know what to answer, so she just nodded and shrugged, "Well... it's _interesting_..."

Nova went to the bathroom for a while, obviously to get rid of her monster-mask. When she returned a couple of minutes later to the tea-sipping guest, even the bathrobe was gone and replaced with a simple dress. "So... what was it that you wanted to talk about? It has gone some time since we have met, recently", she smilingly asked after sitting down into the armchair.

Gravely Zarah put her cup down. She had partly forgotten her fervently urgent topic, while examining the peculiar room decorations. "Captain Lightyear has been captured."

Nova stared dull at her a couple of seconds. "WHAT?"

"That's right. This was the only way to come to tell this. No one trusts Star Command HQ."

"B-But... how? And when? Who? Buzz is on a holiday!"

For a second Zarah's mind filled with images of her ancient, extraordinary holiday, adding then, "I see... he had a holiday, right? He asked his Commander for a holiday? Well, in any case, this whole mess is because of XR's crack to the database. I know what you know. How would I put this...? Lightyear was captured when he was spying me, by Zurg. Your Captain followed me to my real home, obviously wanting to get in touch with Warp." She left a deep sigh before continuing. There would go all the secrets of her privacy now, down the sewer. "I and Warp saw the whole thing. No other eye-witnesses."

Mira was completely dizzy because of these declarations. "B-But... butbut... butbutbut..."

"Yes, I understand your confusion. I summarize; Warp is not dead, Buzz is gone and we need to set up a negotiation to solve this situation. My husband, who you know already, has offered his help. I suggest we meet at my house as soon as possible, you contact the rest of your team including Commander Nebula and tell them strictly the happenings."

Mira still could not get much out of her speaking organs, such an overwhelming experience the latest minutes had been.

"I would have come earlier, but because of certain technical difficulties it was impossible. I know I should have contacted Nebula at first, but there may be Zurg's spy devices in his office. I believe my house is the safest place to keep a debate like this." Zarah continued.

Blinking her eyes a couple of times, Nova at last got the whirr of bewilderment away from her synapses.  "Oh... I... I'll do that right ahead! I'll call Nebula and Booster immediately!" Her Tangean CPU got its gigahertzes working fast. "I'll tell them to come here, then I'll reveal the situation and we head to your house, right?"

"Yes. That's the best choice to do. I'll give you're my address, the place is not far away from here. I'll be waiting, awake, no matter how late you appear there, the main thing is that you come. My street address is 1001 West Cutting Boulevard, turn left from the Sarlac Flower Shop. "

"Why didn't you tell me this all instantly when you came in?" Mira inquired.

"Uh... I got a bit sidetracked..."

With these conclusions, Zarah left Mira's house.

 After two hours, a confused pile consisting of an elder man, robot and some miscellaneous races, was gathered into Mira's house. A mighty hullabaloo followed, no one could understand or comprehend the occurrences. Buzz captured? He was supposed to be on a holiday! For Nebula it was even more baffling since he knew a piece of string theory about Warp being alive and all. In this light it did not fit into his head, how the young engineer woman was related to this mess. Rushing next to her home, he hoped that there would be some light in the end of the tunnel. 

-----Choi's single-family house, the same night--------

The brave rangers and their leader had sat down. The hostess had once again epitomized the state of affairs. So, it would be the right time to present the invisible helper who could possibly be the key part of the whole operation.

"I... I know someone who can help you. To save Captain Lightyear." Zarah began with a little hesitation.

Nebula took a straight pose and adjusted his hearing. "Who? Tell me. Anyone is not capable to this. Craters, there aren't many folks around who could do something relating Zurg."

Zarah twisted her fingers. "...I believe my husband can help you."

Commander got his eyes wide meanwhile his chin drooped open. "B-But... you're a MISS, Miss G'Deneb... how..."

Mira cut him short, "Actually she's not a miss."

"W-what is going on? First I hear that Lightyear has vanished, then I am invited here and I am told that the Galactic Alliance security database lies! What is this?" Commander blurted aghast and shook his head for conclusion.

Zarah drew her sleeves up and let the heavy bracelets visible. "Do you see these, Commander?  These rings and wrist decorations? These are the signs that I'm a woman owned by someone. I stepped into a very ancient-type marital union some time ago."

"The database clearly states that you are a miss! You cannot be married! And... w-what do you mean 'owned'? Is there slavery here? And how do you know about this?" Nebula glowered at the rest of Team Lightyear. He was totally out of his nerves. As the commander of Star Command, he thought he knew every classified detail of the Galactic Alliance, but now he faced a situation for the first time in his life that the little birds had not sung to him. But Mira, Booster and XR just let their regards wander in the ceiling. There was no answer from them.

Then Zarah broke the silence.

"It definitely doesn't mean that if I'm the property of my husband that I'd be a slave! No! Please, Commander, this thing is not crucial now. It's that we have to get the captain out of Planet Z, right? So, can we go on with this?"

"Positively, miss... Ehm, Mrs..." Commander tangled up with his words. "Mrs... who are you now? Who is this husband of yours and how can _he_ help? Who can be such a person that could do any wonders concerning the core of Zurgean Empire?"

Zarah grinned, stood up and peeked into the kitchen. "Come on, Darkie, your turn!" she called someone playfully.

Mira grunted and covered her eyes with a palm. "_Darkie_?"

A hoarse and sarcastic voice came from the open entrance. "So, ya want me to make a melodramatic entrée, what?" Then a huge figure appeared from the murky kitchen, curved behind Zarah and took her under his arm. "Here we are, babe", he gave a kiss on her forehead.

If Nebula was not puzzled already, now he got up from the chair and only could point the man beside Zarah with his finger. "W-Warp D-dark...matter... But... you're DEAD!"

Warp rolled his eyes. "Aw, c'mon, I ain't got blue skin because that I'd be a carcass!"

Even the rest of Team Lightyear stared at him. He surely looked like the 'old Warp', but had seemingly got a bit sturdier more, due to hard physical exercise and good food. The clothing was slightly different from the Agent Z-uniform they had used to see, just simple jeans and a T-shirt. He seemed to be here as if he was at home. Well, he was, in a certain way.

"Y-you're married to Warp Darkmatter?" was the next sentence Commander got out of his distorted mouth.

"Why not? He saved my life, should have the full amnesty of the Galactic Alliance, what's wrong?" Zarah raised her brows.

"And--- this man OWNS you?"

"What's the matter with that? It doesn't bother me!" she smiled and put her arms around Warp's chest, rubbing her cheek a bit against his shirt. He just chuckled back and blabbered some so sugary words down to his wife that Mira wanted to sink under the ground for shame.

"Allright. Stop the bill-n'-coo, we have to build a plan, here", XR snorted as irritated. "We're not here to watch a fluff movie."

 So, all the men and women (plus one robot) gathered at the large living-room table to debate about the heated topic. What to do, who would play the saviour of the universe and so on. It was clear that there was no reason to send an army of Star Cruisers to Planet Z, since no one knew what had happened to Buzz. During the conversation was wondered, why Zurg had not contacted Star Command, like he usually did when he took hostages. Commander came to the conclusion that maybe the Emperor did not want to trade Lightyear to anything, but had other plans concerning him. Whatever they then were, they would not be sending him to an amusement park.

"Zurg has been acting a bit strangely, lately", Mira noted, "Like his strength would not be any longer as magnificent as it was some yeas ago."

"Yea, 'cause I left him. Lost the best plot-twister ever", Warp grinned smugly.

"I have a really bad feeling about this... He's acting against his usual models." Zeb added.

"Yeah, pop. We'd better save our cap before Zee mails Buzz' head on a silver plate to us." XR sighed.

"No, no. That far it won't go. We're getting Lightminute outta there before that."

"So, you said you would help us, Darkmatter", Commander gravely noted, "What is your proposal?"

Warp was silent for a while, biting his lips in deep contemplation. At last he sighed, "What if we'd do it this way. Buzz' ex-partner returns to dirty job with the rest of his team. We take a vessel and whizzz, go to the wolf's cave together. I at least know the surroundings there."

All the present people were thunderstruck. To hear such speech from the mouth of the notorious Warp Darkmatter? He would risk himself because of one missing captain? Yet, Commander and the rangers did not know the background details that were there nearly forcing him to take that step.

But Zarah raised her voice in the air. She would not definitely let her dearest there alone, but insisted that she would be taken with. Warp on the other hand opposed the whole idea. Choi back to that horrible planet from where he had once dragged her away, with tons of efforts? That would be out of question. He could not think this fragile woman taking part of such a venture.

With wrinkled forehead, he cleared it up, "No. You stay home. Ya know it very well that it ain't a place for a lass like ya."

Nevertheless, Zarah had made her mind. "You won't go there alone. If you're going, I'm going. If you resist, I get superglue and get you stuck to that chair forever. If you die or live, I die and live it with you."

"No! I'm not gonna take that risk that ya'd find yarself in front of Zurgie's bazooka blaster." Warp scolded her.

"Who's gonna watch after you there, huh? What if you are in front of Zurgie's bazooka blaster?" Zarah gave back.

"I got these rookies right behin' me! You stay home safe an' sound!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yeah-huh!"

The rest of the guests stared at this arguing eyes round as full moons. So, this was the scary and cynic Warp Darkmatter they had come to know. He and his wife mainly resembled two adolescents that were nagging about some candy bar. They woke up to Choi's yell.

"I'm sure coming with ya! End of story. Dot. No commas nor ifs nor buts."

Warp sighed disappointed. "Yikes, yikes, yikes. Lemme guess, you have a stubborn personality, li'l carrot hair."

"Well red hairs are stubborn and so are men with blue skin and a wreck arm." she pouted.

"Boom bam babe... ya're one cratery wee rogue..."

Zarah folded her arms over her chest and pointed her nose towards the ceiling.

A small burst of laugh croaked away from Commander Nebula's side. It was for the rest of the gang difficult to hold their laughter, either. Warp and Zarah's 'serious' argue was moreover like some big theatre.

"Alright, so what're we going to arrange, here?" Mira put her words to the middle.

Warp cleared his throat. "Me, my thingie here and your rookies are gonna stick together, I guess there ain' no other possibility."

"Kr-hm... we're not rookies, any more..." XR clarified.

"Well, whatever. We take my ship, cruise an' surf along the hot waves of hyperspace an' badda bing, pop to planet Z without detection." Warp fingered his chin.

"Why not to take 42? It's our normal vehicle and ..." Booster wondered.

"No. The Emperor will detect it. Too old tech. My shiny ship has a frequency interferator, such noveau stuff that even the purple 'bot won't be able to scan it."

Commander and the incomplete Team Lightyear could do nothing but admit that he was right. They made no extra questions about how and where Darkmatter had got such a vehicle. After an hour more, there was bound a fairly water-resistant plan, how to infiltrate Zurg's main base and save the captive. It would need the co-operation of every member of the new rescue team. It was a bright fact, that Booster, Mira nor XR still not completely trusted Warp. No wonder, because of the years of different experience of him. But they had to admit that there was a radical change in the blue alien, getting manifested by the truth, how he treated his Lady.

 Therefore, after so on 24 hours Darkmatter's space ship would be headed towards the Dark Empire, to a journey that might end to the death of them all. Who knew, who knew... 

------Meanwhile, Planet Z-------

 Four long days... to spend in the darkness... only one's thoughts as his company. Buzz Lightyear had been locked to sit in the same chair where he had at first waken up. He was connected to a dozen tubes that transported liquidified food and nutrition into his vessels. Although Zurg did not call this torture, it was one hell and inferno to sit in that machine, let the minutes flow... the dulling greyness around you. Once, twice a day, a minion came to give the captive his regular medicine portion. That had happened even now, only a few minutes ago. Then there were the visits of Zurg, who came to snarl his lies into Lightyear's ears and to check, whether there was any yielding in his jailbird towards the evilness. 

 Now the sedative the brain-pod had rationed into Buzz' vein, gradually lulled him into the world of indifference and blackness. His thoughts, however, were quite lively, as if only his body had been paralyzed and his mind left to live its own life. But what was the side effect of Zurg's liquids, it was that the associations of ideas were merely mental aberration. Confused pictures of himself... as if he had followed the course of his own life from somebody else's point of view.

 Loneliness... that was the one word that went on spinning around his head. Where was his family...? Mother, died ages ago. As his father... killed by the monster, whose slave he was now.

"Zurg... what were his purposes concerning my poor Dad Zoxeda... what was that name... Zoxedas¸... never mind. That name matters quite much nothing any longer... he's living only in the memories, as a young man who became the first sacrifice of the raising tyrant... why, why did it have to happen to me?" A couple of more mind-twirls concerning his dead parent got Buzz' eyes filled with bitter tears. "What had he done to Zurg? Nothing! He did not deserve it from the claws of that android... or whatever that Emperor is...? He cannot be a life form. No. But if 'he' is a robot, who made him? Who gave him _an empire_? Odd... what are the odds that 'he' could be some kind of alien covered with a space suit? Although... I've seen cases, I've been one kind by myself... could I have been sure about Warp Darkmatter, when I at first met him dressed to his Agent Z-suit, ready to finish me off with that robotic arm? Naturally... he was associated being a droid, the whole man. And what might I have been in the eyes of the others when I was playing my little role of Shiv Katall... so what comes to Zurg, who knows what he is."

 Buzz felt his heart beats getting faster because of the muffled anger that smouldered inside him. However, the inertia overwhelmed him soon, as the tranquillizer lowered the balance of the stress hormones in his body. No adrenalin, no temper. But the hatred stayed, shadowing his mind.

"Besides... could some living person even be that ruthless and cold as Evil Emperor Zurg? But what Warp was... wasn't he alike, almost worse? However, he did reform... after seeing what kind of daemon Zurg can be in his whole power. That emperor has no conscience. Never has had. Killing thousands of innocent persons has been his joy through the decades. How long has he actually has his reign? Twenty years. Aliens have been born and died under his despotism... over twenty years?"

 After some minutes, Lightyear was reflecting his own past. His whole life was being a space ranger, actually nothing else. An offer to freedom and justice. That what he had wanted his whole life, to defend the honours and virtues. Still, in loneliness. No real family around. All died, gone. Only being kicked from a distant relative to another, after he had gained so much age that he was ready to join the Space Ranger Academy. Of course, he had friends there, his faithful team, the Commander...  so he felt it more comfortable at work than at home. There he was solitary. The absence of family had been a pungent experience.

 Buzz remembered reading a lot about his father from the archives of the Galactic Alliance. He had worked as the ambassador of his home planet, Morph, on Capital Planet. Before he was granted with such a confidential career, he had married Buzz' mother Adi-Gaia Ganymede, at the age of 19.  Buzz had none kind of memento of his mother; she had died him still being an infant. Of his father he had a certain image in his head, the synapses of a five-year-old kid. "Dad was a giant... the silent giant who was always in his own thoughts", he sighed to himself. As a boy, he had wondered that seclusion his father searched for, but now as a grown-up, he had begun to comprehend what were the reasons to that. Obviously, the elder Lightyear had suffered from depression, which had gradually made him abrupt and introvert. No wonder why, if he had lost the dearest creature he had had, killed as the victim of some mafia. Buzz did not know strictly what had happened, no one of the relatives ever discussed about his lost parents, all the information he had gained was from archives, databases and from the mouth of Commander Nebula. Zeb had distantly known Ambassador Lightyear. But that it was as said, no much knowledge was there to share about the pasts of two lost souls.

 The minor register note there had been about the passing of Ambassador Lightyear, was, that on a private negotiation travel to Rontti System, he had been hearingly attacked by Zurg. Then the voices had grown silent. Only rumours, only some incoherent hollers about the death. No direct proofs, no corpse found... nothing. It was actually Zurg who had been pompous of evil glory after finishing off the elder Lightyear... Now, for the first time, it opened to Buzz that all the muttering of the defeat had come from the loudspeaker of Zurg. So he was the starting point of the grapevine. But, as Commander had told him, never there was Ambassador Lightyear after that day, the empty post had been soon replaced by a Morphean man named Kalkatus KlinkKlonk, who still worked on Capital Planet.

"Solitude... this purple chamber... the drowsiness..." Buzz' eyes were tacky. A flimsy curtain had been drawn over them for some time ago. Now it was woven thicker, a white fog descended. Solitude... next his head flopped down and was in a deep sleep.

....to be continued.... 


	8. Getting weaker under the pressure

**8. Getting Weaker under the Pressure**

Eras had gone by, creeping like tortoises forwards. Buzz sat phlegmatic in his metabolism aid machine. The famous space ranger had grown sad during the last 24 hours. Where was his team? Where was the help he had so keenly waited for all this time? He had no idea how long he had been tied into that chair, it felt like weeks... the sense of hours and minutes had been flushed down the refuge chute already on the first day. As if the whole time did not exist on Planet Z at all. At first the Captain had tried to keep some book of the regular visits of the brain-pods in his chamber. Between some hours, they came to control the functions of his chair, dosing then new liquids into the tubes and hoses. Nutrition and more sedatives, laced with who knows what. At least they did not do very good to the mental condition of Buzz.

 But where was his help? Where were the brave rangers that would come to rescue him? No voice, no sound. How eagerly he had been looking forward to see a head of a fellow peeking into his cabin, yelling in merry surprise and coming to get the heavy fetters off him. Where was that saviour? Booster, Mira Nova, XR... what had happened? It seemed now that the whole Universe had forgotten him... except Zurg. But... what if no one really knew where Lightyear was? That would make sense, why nobody had appeared to lighten up his pains. He had taken a 'holiday'... spied Mrs Darkmatter on the sly... was that no one had even noticed his absence in Star Command? No one making him an assurance call for to ask, how his semester had been? "No, it mustn't be like that... someone must know that I've been captured and brought here. At least they could have tracked me by the energy traces... But... I don't even know how long I've been here. They must..."

 Suddenly the door bars clacked and a black figure appeared to the entrance.

"Good evening, apprentice cadet. Well, well. We look a little tired, do we?" Zurg gave an impish laugh, then hovering to Buzz with his jet boots. He stuck his yellow loudspeaker straight in front of Lightyear's face.

"Tired of waiting for salvage from your pathetic team-mates?"

 Zurg could not have said anything worse. This one sentence really slashed the confidence of Buzz. What else had he just been thinking than the non-attendance of his collaborators...?

"They... will... come... to me", he lisped with the last rays of his sense.

"I do not believe so, Lightyear. Why would they come to you? What would they benefit of that? Moreover... I truly believe they have... how would I put this politely... lost their interest in you during the previous moments... maybe they find you rather irritating at times and are quite relieved to see you once gone", Zurg started his brain-washing.

"They... are not... rangers because of benefits... they do it because... of righteousness... and they will... come to me", was the blurry answer. Beyond Buzz' widened pupils, the sparkles of anger boosted his words.

"Righteousness? Muhahhahaaahh! Righteousness! I shall tell you something, my young future apprentice. You are a pest for the most people in Star Command. They are jealous because of all the 'heroic deeds' you have done. They are happy to get rid of you, indeed. That explains perfectly why no one has holloed after you. But..." the Emperor walked a circle around the floor and then clacked his fingers together, "I think you see soon that it is far much better in here, for you to live. Here you shall find your future... as being my loyal henchman. What I am offering you, is myriads and again myriads more magnificent than you ever could get as working under Star Command... that living turkey."

"You're... lying... everything you... ever have said... is a lie..." Buzz put up a defence.

"Jim-kraken-dandy! What do you know when I am lying? Maybe I am not lying this time! Of course, spreading baseless rumours is one of my evil virtues, but maybe I can break that law of the dark side sometimes..." Zurg grinned sarcastically.

"Don't try... to turn my mind... to believe you... I serve only... the goodness", Buzz huffed.

"Oo, goodness? I think you have been somewhat mislead. Have I told you about the goodness and kindness of the dark side? It is a powerful ally... and it never leaves you in trouble, since you let it in. It shall be better for you here, to serve the goodness of ME!" Zurg smoothed. Next the Emperor turned around to hear a grub whining in the entrance. "Your mighty lowliness, we are serving you a very evil dinner. Black octopus from the ocean of Graargh, gruesome gravy, potatoes of punishment, some oolated squiggs and for dessert, sinister cherry pie with very loathsome liqueur."

"Oo! How naughty!" Zurg sniggered confident and turned to Lightyear before leaving him alone, "You remember what I said, Lightyear. They have forgotten you, indeed. Only there is me, who remembers that you still exist! Obey me and I will treat you like a father would treat his son."

 Buzz glowered long after the vanished Emperor. His words had hurt him into a very sore spot. "What if it was true, what the malevolent tyrant had just said? No, it could not be so. But... what if he's right...? Well, in any case, you go to eat, you droid of deception... wait... droids don't eat. Oh my goodness... he's _a being_."

------------

 The Emperor planed silently towards his private chambers of Zurg Tower. The dinner, as usually, was supplied on a serving carriage, outside his main hall door. The grubs and brain-pods were strictly prohibited to enter further than the lobby, with the penalty of death. Zurg still could remember the day when that one unlucky lackey had invaded his bedroom and seen him... in his real appearance. That servant had never been caught, there were so many of them looking like the same as he. It was the mercy of that beetle, because knowing his master he would be a carcass, now.

Zurg pushed the carriage forward, opening the door of his dining parlour. After setting the dishes on the table, he vanished into his dressing room.

"That is for playing a robot, for today... quasars, this outfit is suffocating!" he cursed and began to tinker with his gloves. He detached some electric wires that were connected to the side parts of the gauntlets he had, then pulled the alloy-soldered gear away from his hands. Under there, were just normal five fingers of a human and a back of the hand that was covered with black hair. Then he loosened the tight belt he had, undressed the cloak, pulled the separate chest plate over his head, then ready to take the helmet off.

"Ahh... finally some fresh air!" he inhaled, throwing the loose mask carelessly to the table. Next Zurg was done with taking the whole purple robe off, revealing a tank top with dark-violet trousers from under it. The buckle of his belt, however, told about his obsession to izzards.

"I need to shave..." he skimmed his upper lip in front of a mirror, a red lamp crystal letting its eerie light glow upon him. Dark-brown, sharp eyes stared him back from the reflection, framed with thick, black brows.

"Lightyear... his mind is getting weaker... I could see it very well today. He is beginning to believe what I say. His eyes were telling me that. He is stronger than I thought, but it will take only a few days more... and then he is ready to call me his Teacher."

"Oh... these boots..." he lastly snarled to his shoes, getting again to work with cords that he detached from around his knees. He had quite extraordinary footwear. They resembled normal boots, but had in-built crystallic fusion cylinders that allowed the energy to the jet engines. Zurg's whole uniform was a complex structure of alloys, electric circuits and cloth. The devices in his gauntlets allowed him to send laser beams straight from his fingers, alike he could send them from the eye lens structures of the helmet. So, from outside, he looked like a droid, but inside that all disguise was a normal human. Although... no one was aware of that. Not even Warp Darkmatter had understood that overlord being nothing but mechanics. 

 Soon the tall, middle-aged man trotted into his dining room to get his fork into the delicacies. But, somehow, the meal did not appeal to him. The Emperor was too much in his own thoughts, the issue of Captain Lightyear spinning around his mind from hour to hour. Yet, now he fingered his chin beard in malevolent satisfaction when he remembered for some time ago hearing about the passing of former Agent Z. "That is it... no one can leave the dark side that easily, it shall have its revenge... at least from my hands. Jim-kraken-dandy."

He stuck his fork into the food and swallowed a couple of bites washing them down with claret.

"...from the core of my Empire I have watched Lightyear grow, get skilful in his Star Command career... Why was I in such thoughts that this person would never be anything but a blue-collar minion of some Trade World enterprise? But now... be patient, Zurg. Yes... let us do to him some better brainwashing tomorrow. When the time shall be mature, I give him such tasks where his talents are canalized into their right grooves. In addition, once he has learned to obey me, I shall steel his mind so that he will never leave my side; never leave his Master until I will be dust in the wind. Well... maybe I still have another 50 years time. Moreover, after that, he will build my Empire even more magnificent. The darkness shall rule the whole Milky Way, and maybe, maybe one day some other galaxies, too! I know he would be capable to extend this mighty reign to Andromeda and farther, if he ever wants to do that. To infinity and beyond... hehe."

--------Zeta Quadrant, an undetermined place-----------

"Skip-rope jumping black holes! We shoul've been there, already!" Warp cursed at the control console of his ship. He sat in the main pilot chair, Zarah beside him, while the extra members of the crew jutted in miscellaneous seats in the rear of the cockpit. The male Darkmatter was after long pause dressed into his Agent Z-gear, which seemed to be the best possible space suit for him, although it seemed to be somewhat taut because of the extra pounds he had gained recently. His lady had a black-silver Xanedian space costume on. The rangers had their normal uniforms.  

But now, Mira and XR eyed Darkmatter with very bothered regards, when the 'boss' attempted to get some logics in the directions. Two days they had been straying lost in space.

"If you would have asked us even a bit help, we would have given you the advise that before Tnacsuroc System you should have activated the jump gate and taken the wormhole towards Dan-Toiiné System." Mira spat disappointed.

"Yea, yea, Princess Pride, we're just checking the situation, here", Warp snorted back.

"Tsut tsut, Darkie. Remember, we need co-operation", Zarah knocked his shoulder form the beside seat.

"Now, I thought there was this shortcut that I used a lot when I was under the command of that Izzard..."

"The shortest way to Planet Z would have been the one that I mentioned!" Mira snapped.

"Lisn' Your Worshipfulness..." Warp began, but got interrupted by Choi.

"I think I got a clue, where we are." She pushed the holo-map activator button and a colourful 3D-image spread in front of the windshield.

"Lookie, here. We're in Zeta Quadrant, but maybe not so badly astray from the core. See, this system here is Zoinks and that one behind it is SG-1, then there's Narf. I believe we're in the middle of the triangle they form. This is the periphery of Zurgean Empire, which explains the absence of guard hornets." A smile lifted up the corners of her mouth because the problem would finally be solved.

Warp's heart melted. He extended his flesh hand to cuddle his Lady. "Aww... li'l babe... your Master is veeery pleased with ya..."

She tittered back and chirruped, "I'll do anything for my big, strong Huggy Bear..."

Warp leaned over the gear sticks to give her a kiss. Yet, he could not realise his intention because of XR's shortcutting bleat. "Would you two stop for a while? We've seen your lovey-dovey scene a bazillion times. Would you now steer the ship to Planet Z? You can coo as much as you ever wish when the mission is over!"

"...if we ever can survive this..." Booster whimpered from his corner. He had been quite silent during the route this far. Deep concern about Buzz filled his mind. Well, Captain Lightyear was his greatest exemplar, so naturally the news of his disappearance had been a shock to him. And just like Mira, he felt that there was something very dark oppressing the future of the galaxy, if they would not succeed in their journey.

 After a couple hours of travelling in hyperspace, the ship jumped back into the Einsteinian world. For their sudden fright, Team Darkmatter (that was Warp's modestly egoistic new name given to the troop) found themselves almost in the atmosphere of the target planet. Its deadly red clouds delineated in the horizon, surrounded by the three artificial moons.

"Quick! Put the shield generator on!" Warp shouted, getting scans of Zurg's security device activations. 

Zarah fumbled the buttons and pulled the levers in total haste.

"Did you observe the energy readings right at all when you de-activated the warp, Mister Darkmatter? We were not supposed to dive up from the ether right in front of Zurg's nose!" Mira shrieked in panic, giving then a notice that a patrol of hyper-hornets was getting nearer. The interferator shield had not yet been loaded, so for their ill fortune, a nearby scouting pack of robots had gotten a track. "Quickly! Put the darned cover on!"

"In a few seconds it should be on!"

Indeed, there were some Zurg's metal lackeys approaching them in the near space. One of them diverged from its group, obviously wondering what that object was that had popped there from the emptiness. Its radar devices began to search for indications and get some kind of an X-ray picture of the vessel. Not very long would pass before it would send the data straight to the control centre of Zurg Tower.

"Why won't the freakin' shield load?" XR bawled in the middle of the bustle.

"Three seconds!" Zarah blurted. "One, two..."

...

...

.....To be continued.........


	9. The destruction of Buzz Lightyear

**9. The Destruction of Buzz Lightyear**

For the last pico-part of the radical second, the interferator shield got its powers full. The whole crew inside the ship stood rigid, listening to the voices of silence. Through the windshield, they could see a hornet approaching them, then suddenly stopping. It seemed like the droid had been snuffing the odourlessness of the vacuum. It stirred and shifted, rolled its artificial head. All its circuits were filled with question marks. "System malfunction. Error code Z-5674, no target available", it signalled to the control centre. "Scan operation complete." Next, the mecha turned about and flied back to the other robots.

  A couple of minutes Warp and the company just jutted there their eyes wide, foreheads wet of cold sweat. Such a close shave they did not have to experience every day.

"Hasta la vista..." XR sighed at last.

"Hot rockets...you said it." Booster wiped his face with a tissue.

"Quasars... I guess it's then to let our noses point towards that joviality and hope the best..." Warp added, for the same time hugging Zarah who was still quite much in terror.

 The invisible ship glided into the lower atmosphere of the Dark Capital. Hyper-hornets flying here and there, upon the numberless evil factories and buildings were a miserable sight. The sky was redder than ever, its crimson glow only duplicating the gloominess.

"Gah. How did I ever want to live in this place?" Warp snorted, remembering his older times.

"Even the Landfill Planet Kukkokiekuu is more cheerful than this", Mira noted.

"Now where are we gonna actually land? On the roof of Zurg Tower?" XR asked.

"Nah. We're now on the other side of the planet. It'll take few hours with this creep speed to get to the main buildings. Where else would Zurgie keep Lightsnack than in his debonair dungeons... and they're under that Empire State Building. Hmm... we'll cruise a lil...", Darkmatter gave an answer.

"And I assume that there's not even a plan B?" Mira commented. She knew perfectly that Warp was going to improvise something here, again, the result possibly being that they would wander somewhere lost for days. Likewise... she did not know how right she was in her predictions.

----Three days later-------

 Poor Captain Lightyear. Gradually his mind started to break up under the strong influence of the medicines Zurg pumped into him, in addition of the brainwashing the Emperor so keenly did. For Buzz it was sheer depression that no help seemed to be in sight. Was he really forgotten? Was it true, what the Evil Emperor said that the members of Star Command really did not care about his existence? It could not be veritable. He knew strictly that every word Zurg let out of his loudspeaker was a lie. A filthy lie. But... why did he gradually start to see his thoughts as comprehensible? What if his team, Team Lightyear only cared about their own businesses...? Or the other rangers... they were not all nice to him, accurately speaking. Rocket Crocket... he was always there to mock him. And Ty Parsec... just the same. Was his team alike? What if they behind his back had for a long time hoped that he would be history? XR, who was always commenting about Buzz' self-confidence... was he an egoistic jerk in the eyes of his fellow rangers? 

"It must be so, then... I'm an irritating piece of trash in their thoughts..." a dark idea popped into his mind. "But it can't be... they have always been there to help me, even then, when they were just rookies, on their first mission to get me out of this same place..." Buzz let his blurry regard wander along the ceiling and walls of the violet cabin. But somehow his vision was now hooked to the big, glowing Z that was above the door.

"Zurg... what he is offering me... glory? What if he is not as evil as I have thought him to be...? Or is the evilness as bad as I've thought? He didn't kill me, he didn't actually torture me..." As he continued to glare at the decoration letter on the wall, the hallucinations the liquids caused, began again. The letter twisted and twirled in his brains, getting suddenly the form of Zurg, although surrounded by a beautiful, calm, white light. In that dream, the enemy did not look apprehensive at all, but gently called him by his name. "_Buzz... join me and you'll be mighty... I shall treat you as if I would treat my own son... Join me..._" It was the faded fire of his synapses that made up all this; it was perfectly nothing supernatural, not mind-control, but his own, depressed and confused self.

"They will not help me... not the stupid, careless rangers of Star Command... maybe it is better for me to be here..." the words played on his behalf. "Zurg did not kill me... as I had always thought... what if it is really better here? I have no friends back there, at home... That Zeb Nebula has told me that he was my friend... but is he? A true friend would have helped me this far..."

 A couple of hours went by. More hallucinations, more incoherent thoughts, more misgiving about the past he had this far in Star Command. The creeping minutes... the silence... the gleaming Z on the wall... the darkness... his heart beats... the little hum of the nutrition machine that kept him alive in his prison... the darkness... _the dark side_... 

"Is it that bad...?"

 In the evening Zurg came to his usual visit. In front of him was now a view of Buzz lolling powerlessly in the chair, all resistance gone. He blinked lazily his eyes a couple of times when spotting the Emperor. 

A weary voice came to the ears of the villain, "I will serve you... my Master."

 Zurg stared at him in pure amazement for a few seconds, but then straightened up his pose and stepped to the broken-up hero ranger.

"Oo, well what we have here? A very wise decision, if I may express myself. What made you change your mind?"

"I... guess... you are right. About... that it is... better to be here... than out there", Buzz murmured back, with an indifferent expression.

"Now you start to see the facts with your own eyes! You have entered the door to the right path. Well done."

Next Zurg called some of his lackeys to get Buzz out of the machine. Thirteen days he had been sitting there, letting the nutrition salient and other liquids feed his organs and gather the waste products out of his circulation. The injection needles and hoses were gradually detached by the grubs and finally the fetters that had held him still.

 Buzz was in a very weak condition. When he attempted to stand up, his eyes went foggy and he fell back into the seat. One reason for this was that he had not eaten proper food in ages. His legs felt limb and the rest of the body was quite slack, too. Short, black beard covered his face because of being unshaved for so long. Therefore, Zurg gave another summons to his minions, who soon brought a wheel-chair to the fatigued space ranger.

"You get him to the barber room, and ask the brain-pod to shape the nice beard our new henchman has grown. Then you give him a new robe, this one is crumpled. And, as for your grand day, I shall donate you with a nice cloak, a black cloak with a naughty red lining... Jim-kraken-dandy, you shall be keen on the wonderful fashion of Planet Z, designed by me!" Zurg fingered smugly his helmet.

The grubs helped Buzz to sit down to the vehicle they had brought and headed their way to the floor Z-9 of Zurg Tower. When they were still on the doorway, the metallic voice of the Emperor gave one more order. "After you have finished your work, you shall bring him to the imperial guest room. A light dinner shall be served to _Apprentice Zenith_."

 In all his new freedom, Buzz had not completely got rid of the arresting accessories. Heavy handcuffs had been locked around his wrists, a strong fetter connecting them. He would carry them as long as the Emperor would see it necessary. He did not trust Lightyear, he knew he could intrigue plots for to flee. Although, it was not much possible in his current state, being under the control of the medicines and all.  In the guest room, at a massive table, the Captain weakly chomped the ration that was put in front of him. Zurg did not eat; he only inspected the beaten-up ranger sitting opposite to him.

"This shall be the beginning of a new era... if my predictions concerning you, my young apprentice, shall be fulfilled", he let his metallic voice reach Buzz's ears. "I shall soon rule the whole Galaxy with my ultimate evilness, and you will be an important person in conquering the Galactic Alliance and the rest of the pathetic solar systems. You know the weaknesses of Star Command, you know that silly, 'democratically elected' missus President and you know the oh-I-am-so-good-and-brave Commander Nebula. You know how they can be easily defeated."

"Mmhh..." Buzz muttered and took a gulp of water. The eating felt awful, since he had been so long time without proper food. His stomach was like glued to his spine. Therefore, he could not fill it quite much with bites; he felt the sickening grumm in it already.

"Not hungry?" Zurg asked surprised.

"Nhh..." Buzz pouted and pushed the plate away.

"Oh well, I attempted to give you a delicious supper. However, your Master can let you now to sleep. A chamber has been arranged to you, it is only a temporal place, though, but will overcome the 'comfortable' chair in which you have been this far. You see, the more you obey me, the more I shall grant you!" the Emperor smirked.

"Hhhh..."

"It will take a few days to furnish you a proper hall with all the goods you will need. I shall give my servants the instructions to start to clean and decorate some empty rooms in 7th floor. But, remember, it depends on your allegiance." Creaking his claws together, Zurg gave a call to a comm. link, for to guide Buzz to his new cabin. 

--------------------

 Time did not exist on Planet Z, what was that Buzz had experienced. Crawling now to sleep into his temporary room somewhat 24 hours after the relieving dinner with Zurg, he came to reflect the happenings that had occurred recently. How long had he been the slave of that chair? No answer to that nodus was found anywhere. He had not seen the whirligig of day and night, only corridors, tunnels, miscellaneous rooms without windows. It was literally a part of Zurg's scheme to drown his apprentice into murky dullness...

 Buzz' new quarters were quite comfortable compared to the usual dungeons where the prisoners where kept. Although he was still forced to carry his chains, in addition that the door was heavily locked, he had a warm and soft bed there, a plate filled with delicious food, a lamp crystal to give some rays to the secluded life. But that it was, otherwise the chamber was apathetic and empty, his own sound of breath as his only company. In a few days he would get a better living place... was that so what Zurg had promised? 

 Among all this, there was some kind of a weird emotion inside Buzz. It quietly whimpered that there was something distantly familiar in Zurg, in a totally strange way. Buzz could not associate what was streaming in his subconscious. Something in the way he spoke, the way he moved around... little characteristics that the ranger never had paid attention to when usually fighting against the Emperor and his evil forces. But what that oddity was, the closet of comprehension was locked in front of him.

"What have I done to myself...?" he asked many times, the drowsiness making his eyes tacky. The weak peep of his forgotten conscience attempted to crawl along his synapses, but the new, deep murmur of his darker nature was there to gain the victory. "Why should I listen to you, any more...?" he inquired his voice of righteousness, "...you have done nothing but harm to me. You pretend there to help me, but what is it, instead... you have always suffocated the changes I could have made..."

"_No, Buzz! No! Don't give up to the forces of darkness! You know it's wrong, what you do now, don't disagree with the last remains of goodness that are in you!_" was the counterargument of the other voice.

"Shut up..."

"_Fight, Buzz Lightyear! That's what you always have done! Don't give up, don't descend to the infernos, no!"_

"I said once, shut up! I used to believe in you, in your commands... that you, my consciousness, were there to guide me... but what were the promises of the saving? Where is my team? No one cares about me, it's the same for them, if I was dead!"

"_No! I did not promise you direct saving, be patient! You always have been patient, don't lose your sense, now! NO, don't give up!"_

Then there was a third howl, a metallic-sounding, temptating summons. For Buzz' mischance, it drew the same rope with the dark side. "Join me... I shall reward you... with prices and fortune you never could have imagined... you want power, after all, that it is. And that is, what you shall have... power, in the dark side... _by my side_..."

...

...

...

"You shall have it... the dark glory..."

......to be continued........


	10. Team Darkmatter to the rescue

**10. Team Darkmatter to the Rescue**

The crawling time... darkness, nothing but darkness was around Buzz Lightyear, or strictly said _Zenith_. Like some mindless zombie, he plodded along the violet corridors of Zurg Tower at the heels of his new teacher. There was nothing left to him, any more, in his previous life... Star Command seemed to be like some pale mirage behind him. His team... that was not his team. How long he had waited for, they had not come. The game was over. He was now walking along the path of the dark side, towards the drearier abysses of evilness...

 Even now, he blindly followed Zurg, who was presenting him the quarters of his palace. The two lords slowly promenading onwards was indeed quite a majestic view. Although Zurg's silver-horned helmet was over a feet upon Buzz' crown, it did not fade the image of might. With ghastly cheerfulness, the Emperor gave side-glances at the beaten space ranger behind him. Buzz walked his head bowed, dressed to almost similar robes to Zurg. However, the chains around his wrists were gone, which narrated quite a lot about the mind-chance. There was the imperial successor, bent to serve the wrongness in circa three weeks. So weak was his mind, after all... although Zurg knew that it was mostly the merits of the medication he had given to the Captain. Even now, without those liquids, Zenith might turn his back against the éclat of Z Empire and return to his past... but that Zurg would not allow. He would keep it firm that his apprentice would stay in the position he was now.

"And... this is the official hall for planning naughty plots!" Zurg gloated and pointed at a large room with his finger where brain-pods worked. Buzz gave a fatigued frown towards the minions and nodded.

"Oh, and I saved the best -or worst- for the last! I know my ultra-malicious throne room may be familiar to you, already, but it is never too superfluous to give you a tournée", Zurg creaked his fingers together, continuing to speak to the grub that was beside him with a palm book, "Oo, that word _tournée_ sounds very evil, put it to the list of my ultimately sinister sayings! With French spelling, throat-r..."

 In the throne room, the Emperor snapped his usual communication and spy device, the large holo-screen on. A flickering picture of Capital Planet appeared in front of him and Buzz.

"This is my best baby... I can screen almost all with this! And it shall be one of your work tools, too!" he cackled.

"Mhh..." was Buzz' narcotic answer.

"See that planet? Your home it used to be. Now, this is your home. Planet Z, the core of the dark side. But... gradually, as you have begun to agree with me, it is time to accomplish my favourite, superior dream... to take over the Galaxy. Finally."

"What are you going to do, Master?" Buzz asked laconic.

"Jim-kraken-dandy... use your help! That's what loyal apprentices are for!" was the answer.

"What shall I do, Master?"

"You know basically everything about Star Command, its weaknesses, its strongest points. The only thing we need is to destroy Star Command HQ, take the control over the Universe Protection Unit... and snap, the Galactic Alliance is mine. Then my modest reverie is fulfilled! In addition... you know it well that I shall share the effulgence with you!"

A small gleam ignited in Buzz' eyes. The first fire of greed had bewitched him. 

--------------------

Meanwhile, outside Zurg Tower, Team Lightyear with their added members were searching for an entrance to the medulla of all. What had happened to them during all this time? Well... of course Warp had kowtowed himself to heavens with his 'knowledge of Planet Z'. But it had turned out, that the Emperor had built vastly new factories and blocks since Darkmatter's last visit. Therefore, the local plan was not what the rescue party had expected. In addition, there were hornets squatting in every corner, somewhere always came a grub or two to harass the team's headway... it was nothing but constant hiding and lurking somewhere in the grimy lanes.

 So, a week had lightly tripped along the highway of time. Fortunately the troop had found water to keep them alive during their unsuccessful journey. Food rations they had enough in their backpacks, even for such a glutton as Booster (although it is necessarily to mention that he lost quite many kilos during the trip). The hiding of their ship was the only solved puzzle. It was put to huddle on the roof of one grub penthouse, under its protective shield. As efficient as the landanah energy supplies were, there was no fear that the batteries would run out. The nights had been spent who knew where, in cellars, refuge chutes... the most comfortable place had this far been a grub pre-school room, where Warp had gotten in by picking the lock. Always one of the heroes stood in guard, for to warn about unexpected perils. That role usually fell to XR who did not need much robo-REM.

"Now... we have located the main place... we might try to slink in through one fox burrow, namely the servant side door", Warp fingered his chin and turned over an outdated holo-map.

"There's better be a good way to get in, since I'm not sleeping any more on this planet!" Mira cursed under her breath, "Previous night was the last drop! How did you ever come up that we'd stay in a giant compost?"

"Well missy princessy bluebirdie, did ya have any better ideas? It was raining and your suggestion was to sit in a giant sewer pipe!" Warp snorted back.

"For your information, you're blue-skinned, too!" Nova defended herself somehow.

 "Hmh... yea, that's right..." he glanced at her absent-mindedly and concentrated again on the map study. "It ain't that easy to infiltrate there... we'd need some disguise..."

There and then XR's sensitive sensors perceived some electric activity approaching them. The group was standing in the middle of a long, narrow lane between two high buildings. Something was coming from behind the corner that turned to a wider alley.

"Shht! we betta get our parts quickly out of here!" the robotic ranger whispered. "We may be left under a hornet stampede."

The troop got their feet fast. Rushing there forwards in the dimness, they could hear metallic-echoing steps behind them. But in front, was a mere catch 22-situation. The road namely ended to a brick wall.

"Now what? Where are we gonna hide?" Booster went nervous.

Zarah spotted a messy door beside her. It seemed to be locked, but maybe would be quickly opened with laser ray.

"Let's get in here. It can't be a place worse than this!"

Therefore, Mira tuned her wrist laser to the melting frequencies and quickly handled the task. The door creaked open and the team squashed in. It was their lucky shooting star, since a couple of seconds after that, a hornet scan radar swept even the furthest mouse holes of the lane.

 The space the team had burgled into, seemed to be some kind of a small stock room. Nova lit a torch crystal to get some light into the untidiness. There were boxes lying on the floor, in the right was a pile of cleaning equipment, in the left some cloth bundles with a heap of cloaks, then an assortment of miscellaneous objects jutting in a large shelving at the end wall of the room.

"Hey, this is just what we need!" a wide grin spread on Warp's face.

"What do you mean?" Mira frowned at him, "Don't tell me you wanna put up some circus show?"

He left a cunning laugh, tapping to Zarah and picked her a dusty, black canvas from the messed lump.

"We're gonna have a nice disguise! That's the way we get to knock the front door of Mister Sunny!"

"Yeah, whatever. Let's pretend we're delivering a pizza. With an extra-big happy-meal toy", XR chuckled, pointing at himself.

"No... we're gonna do som'thing else!"

In five minutes Warp's plan was clear to everyone, although it raised quite much opposition in the members of Team Lightyear. The idea was that they would dress up themselves to a group of cleaners that had been recruited to make the Z Tower corridors mirror-shiny. Mira and Zarah would be two diligent cleaning ladies, Warp an assistant robot, Booster a biotic waste grinder and XR another helper droid.

"Now, hold still that I get this paint put onto you!" Warp tried to keep the grumbling mecha on its position, while he sprayed white paint across his helmet, so that it finally was completely opaque from outside. Then the blue alien cut some sticker material out of a bulk, splatted it over the Star Command logo of XR's middle part and wrote a sign 'R2-Z2' over it with a felt tip.

"Yay, ya look like an object from the museum of modern art! Can ya see trough the paint from inside?" Darkmatter chuckled to his artistic masterpiece.  
"Yea, as much as a wedding veil would have been put over my eyes."

"It's not waterproof, so was said in this bottle. We're gonna wipe it clean till the gig's gone with the wind..." Warp inspected once more the spray can.

"I think this whole outfit is made to mock me somehow, but I can't connect my associations..." XR concluded.

"Okay, your turn!" Warp blinked to Mira, who pouted back. She was forced to put a cloak over her space ranger uniform and a thin pillow was bound around her waist to let her look a bit more well-eaten. Next, a mop was put on her head to hide her red hair. She was then granted to take a broom and two buckets into her hands. Zarah was dressed quite similarly.

Booster, therefore, had to walk on all fours, which was quite troublesome. A large textile was put on his back, so he mainly resembled an overweighed beast of burden. Lastly, Warp decorated himself with some loose droid parts that lied in one corner.  Then it was just heading to the aim.

 After a labyrinth of roads, corners and stairs, the disguised troop entered some kind of a patio connected to Zurg Tower. A busy grub working there bumped to XR, starting up a bit after giving a rapid observe at the weird-looking wanderers.

Instantly Zarah took a flattering smile, tuning her voice to falsetto and chirped, "Good day, there, Sir Grub, can you point us the doorway of servants?"

The lackey was quite puzzled, but gave a friendly answer because of being called so nobly. "Has the Dark Lord invited you?"

"Why, sure! We are new cleaners, have come way from the borders of his Empire just to serve him! We just love to make the walls glitter in freshness, we whistle evil songs while we work, we..." Warp blabbered metallically from under the loose hornet head that he had put as his mask.

"At your service, sir!" XR gave the last declaration.

The beetle gave a smirk, "Ooh, you must be the attendants of the new apprentice! The Emperor has arranged him room here and they definitely need a good puts-blank!" Next he turned about to point a door that was situated under a small shed, right in the rear of the inner courtyard. "You use that door! Shall I tell His Lowliness that you have arrived?"

"Oh, no, no!" Mira startled but then changed her accent, "We want this all to be an awesome surprise!"

With those words, the simple-minded minion left the comical group.

"Did I just hear that insect saying that Zurg has _a new apprentice_?" Mira scratched her hair.

"That's not so crucial, now. Well of course that Z worshipper has got someone to fill my empty post, maybe for a long time ago." Warp noted. "Let's just get in."

 At the door, there was a drawback waiting for them.

"Triple craters! Of course the door is locked!" Mira cursed.

Zarah rubbed her forehead, looking contemplating, "We can't laser it open like we did to that stock room thingie... hmm..."

"Well, Mister Know-It-All, what's the Plan C, now?" Nova snarled to Warp.

His head atilt, he watched the wall for a few seconds, then an evident idea lamp was switched on in his brains. "Of course. It's so obvious."

"What is obvious?"

Darkmatter bowed down, lifted up the welcome-signed doormat and picked up a key from under it.

"Remember, the key is _always_ under the rug!" he chortled to Mira.

The key fit perfectly into its hole, clicking the heavy purple door open. In front of them broadened a dimly lit corridor, leading to who knows where, to the dark nucleus of Z Palace. 

 After getting to the third floor of Zurg Tower, another lackey threw questioning regards towards the peculiar performance. Heaping coals of fire on the troop's heads, the brain jar rolled with his wheels to see the oddity more closely.

"Uh... and where are you going?"

Zarah put up her high-pitched false tone, again. "Sir Brain, we are new cleaners. The Mighty, Superior, Powerful, Honoured Emperor has ordered us to clean the room space of... what was the name of that guest...?" She had precisely no idea what was she going to jabber, but put up a fake story rapidly. The only goal was the attempt to find out where the missing ranger was. Of course no one of the rescuers had a clue that in reality the situation was like that. They all grasped that Buzz was a gaolbird.

'R2-Z2' continued her incomplete sentence, "Surrr... whirr... database reads the name of the guest... Lightyear. Kronks..."

"Y-Yes, that is him. Could you guide us to him?" she sang nervously.

The lackey shrinked somewhat back. "Beware! No one may use that name. It's a disgrace for the lord. But obviously you did not know that, yet. This way." he waved his hand appendage.

Behind him, during the leading, the stunned Team Darkmatter discussed with a low tone.

"What's going on over here? I thought we were going to the dungeons." Booster noticed.

"Me too. Something's mighty fishy."

"Smells a mile distance."

"Something odd has been done to Buzz. This doesn't sound like that he would be Zurg's hated captive..."

"Here is your work ground, studious cleaners. The chambers have just been wallpapered and newly painted. You tidy up the dust, repairs trash and bring in the furniture that is stored up to room 5h4-Z-n4y", the brain cart gave an announce when he had directed them in.

Everyone of the actors gasped in anguish. So, they were really made to practise their 'profession'. There were four large halls, all in a terrible condition.

"He moves in when the night falls. Your work is expected to be ready, then", the henchman concluded and left the mentally moaning labourers.

"Now all we need is the attitude of Snow White and Cinderella..." XR sighed.

"You and your great ideas!", Mira groaned and picked up a half-eaten sandwich from the floor, left by the repairers.

"I didn't say it would be easy", Warp commented, "But at least we're on the spot to meet the guy we're searching for. If he really appears here. We have then time to figure out how we're going to get him out of here."  

 Towards evening, in the palace, Zurg and his apprentice were in the middle of a conversation. The Emperor furthermore monitored Star Command HQ that was delineated in the big screen. Chortling nastily he turned to Zenith.

"Now, my young apprentice, tell your Master the weaknesses of Star Command. We want to get the luxuries of this Galaxy to our clutches, is that not right?" 

Monotonically Buzz answered, "It's the refuge hatch. Under the belly of the base..." He was in the point that he was fully dutiful to his former foe.

Zurg patted his shoulder. "Jim-kraken-dandy that is excellent obedience. And... how to get there?"

"You need to know the protection shield frequencies..."

"...And what are they, may I ask?"

A lonely croak in Buzz' brains still warned him for not to tell. But the voices of the dark side smothered the tiny remains of his conscience, boosted by his narcosis. Slowly he began to count with his fingers. "The first is... from the seven layers... 800GHz, then is the ionized shield of 768GHz... the sixth is... what was it, 499Ghz..." Gradually all the secrets and mysteries concerning the protection were revealed. Soon Zurg was chuckling with very sinister satisfaction to the suppressed mind of the former ranger. "Yes, yes, go ahead! Anything else your Master should know?"

"No..."

"Very well, then. I shall order my humbles to prepare an imperial hornet army ready, for to finally conquer the Alliance. It may take a few days... but what is that compared to the fact that I shall finally rule it all! All! I am such a naughty boy! Oh... it makes the tears of happiness into my eyes even to think about this might of malignance! Anyone have a tissue?" Zurg wiped a tear away from his helmet cheek.

A grub beside him passed him the object he needed. "Here, your evilness! It's the one with lace decorations!"

After the touched Emperor had dried his eyes, he enjoined the lackey to take Buzz to his new quarters. Indifferently slouching Lightyear followed the beetle. He cared a piece of neutron about the praises of the grub, what the little helper told about the marvellous halls.

"There was a group of skilled stewardesses washing the floor, windows and walls, today. There's this _biiig_ four-poster for you and a _biiig_ wardrobe filled with violet robes and this _biiig__ biiig_ Zee on the wall..."

 Next, the minion wished Zenith good night, leaving him alone in front of the door. Buzz twisted the knob of it, tired and unresponsive. "So... tomorrow... who knows... my Master rules the galaxy... building his dark empire..." In his meditations he did not expect to bump straight to the 'cleaners' that had lied him an ambush, there. In addition, Warp's group were completely unaware of Buzz' situation. As the doorway closed and Lightyear stepped into his bedroom, the whole reception committee jumped from the corners to greet the long-lost ranger.

"Captain Lightyear! Are you all right?" Mira shouted a bit too enthusiastically, being then scolded by XR who ordered her to quiet it down.

Booster took a long leap for to hug Buzz, but the incomer reacted quite in an opposite way. He did not recognise the team members, not even when Mira took the mop wig away from her head. Zenith tapped backwards and with an ill grin, raised his voice, "What? Infiltrators! Trespassers! Illicit people! Guards!"

Warp jumped horrified behind the yelling Captain, hindering him not to rush out of the door. "Ssshuhs! It's us! Don't shriek!" was the calming-down attempt.

But the hollers only increased.

"Make him stop that nonsense! He ain't himself!" Zarah exclaimed to Warp in the middle of the chaos. "Now, before someone hears this row!"

"Help! Guar..." Buzz' squawk stopped like in front of a concrete wall. Warp had bunched him to his occiput with quite a jolt.

"Sorry, pal, but ya didn't gimme a choice!" the blue alien regretted when his prey fell limb onto the floor.

 Only now the juncture began to gather some aurora. All the 'visitors' stared at the clothes and new appearance of their old buddy, then making the conclusion that something very severe had happened to Lightyear.

"He's in a narcosis of some kind! That's not our captain!" Mira whispered while structinizing the pupils of the floor-lying man.

"Well dratted masters of asteroids! Zurg has turned him to the dark side! This is _the apprentice_ the bug was jabberin' about!" Warp grimaced.

"No! It can't be! Buzz could never be evil!" Booster whined.

"Never underestimate that violet hazard. He's capable of almost anything. We dunno what he has been playin' with Buzz' mentality, but that wasn't any innocent volleyball. And Supernova is right, he's been pumped full of some nasty doubing stuff."

"If he is, and it is obvious that he is, under the influence of some kind of medicines, they have this certain cycle to affect. If we... and we gotta, can prevent him getting his regular dose of that whatever-icky stuff, he might wake up from his strange dormancy." Zarah pointed out.

"Maybe we have a change to get him out now... the night is falling, the Zurg Tower seems to quiet down..." Mira fingered her chin.

"Lis'n, Miss Queen of Hearts, we cannot drag him along if that's what's yar suggestion", Warp pursed to her. "If we're gonna get this hunk outta here, he must walk voluntarily with us. Remember that our ship ain't very near!"

"What? You mean we're gonna hide here, till he after some months wakes up from his mental coma?" Mira snarled.

"Break up the quarrel, now! Darkie, Miss Nova, we need rationality, here." Zarah came between them, hands on hips. "As we have debated, already, Captain Lightyear is in some kind of inebriation. That is, either we prevent him getting more the rot they have filled him with, or we find an antidote to it."

Suddenly Warp grapped her, lifted her up into his embrace and smacked a big, wet kiss on her lips. 

"My sweet tiny li'l babe toots I love ya!" he almost shrieked in sudden enthusiasm, "That's it! We're gonna get an antidote! Why didn't I get that instantly, Zurgie's lab is in a picosec distance!"

The dizzy Zarah was almost thrown back onto the floor as her mate dashed towards the door.

"Hey, hey, not so fast! Someone needs to come with you!" Booster reasoned.

"Aye... forgot." Warp swallowed. "You, Artoo... I mean Exaar, come with me. I know where The Secret Lab is. You remains, keep an eye on my toots, don't let anythin' happen to her."

The half-robot and the full-robot left Mira and Booster roll their eyes in all peace and guard the 'toots' and the indolent man.

....to be continued........


	11. Return of the space ranger

**11. Return of the Space Ranger**

After some minutes of searching and lurking, Warp spotted an entrance in the end of one corridor. It was empty everywhere, since every single grub and loose brain had gone to the lands of sleep.

"Ah... room A-Z1-l3 as always... the Lab", he grimaced and pulled the heavy door open. In front of him and XR widened quite a mess of science and medicine.

"Now what kinda medicine man finds somethin' in here?" XR leered around, shrugging to all the bottles and liquids that were jutting here and there. The laboratory was not any small alchemist's nook, but moreover a minor factory.

"Quasars... the messes can't be far away, if they're for his precious apprentice... or at least the stuff should be marked somehow. When I see what he's overdamped with, I can try to find a cure."

Indeed, there was a smallish flivver near the main door. It had several injection needles and some half-full test tubes of crimson drug.

"This looks promising..." Warp fingered his goatee, then picking one of the bottles up. From the name label he read, "'_For Zenith. Two doses per day, 10 mg diazepam, 1 mg alprazolam, 5 mg antiserotonin...'_ Twisting toroids! This is it, _Zurgapharabolihyberboloidium_! Old but efficient medicine... no doubt Zurg's been sticking this a couple of litres into Buzzy's vessels..."

"Usch." was XR's only comment.

"Now, be a useful droid and scan if ya see a bottle of _bebobium-lemniscate_ here somewhere. Some milligrams of that shoul' be enough to wake up that narcomaniac."

XR sensitised his eyes like binoculars and soon spotted a small glass jar of the mentioned medicine across the room. Warp went to grip it, dancing then a couple of circles with sheer joy.

"Now this'll do the trick!" 

 Back in Buzz's rooms, Darkmatter then stuck a hypodermic syringe full of the healing potion into Zenith's vessel. As it was predicted, there was no knowledge for how long it would take from him to recover and find the true self again. All it was to do was waiting.

"Any idea how long he's like a vegetable?" XR yawned.

"Well..." Darkmatter meditated, "If we count that there's the bunch I gave him, then he has to forget that he's Zurg's hailer, I'd say a couple of hours minimum."

"And we're gonna do what during that time?" Booster asked fatigued.

"You can sleep if you feel so. It's pretty late. We just huddle here and tell ghost stories to each other", XR launched.

----------------------

 A grey fog enveloped the vision organs of Buzz Lightyear. His head felt like it would explode, a million untuned tubas played a chaotic march in his ears, spiced up with the squawks of distant crows. In front of his eyes, were figures... somehow familiar, but so remote...

"Uh... what the craters..." he left a small groan from his throat.

"He's waking up!" Booster's voice echoed somewhere in the hallways of eternity.

Two blue faces were delineated upon Zenith. Then some small creature with skin as pale as a ghost... then a rotund, red shadow..."

Buzz blinked his mucous eyelids, attempting to get rid of the haze.

"Wha..." he uttered, finally conceiving who were upon him.

"Mira? B-Booster...XR... _W-Warp_?" he distinguished the persons one by one, staying then to gawp at Darkmatter his finger erect in the air.

"Yay, ol' pal..." Warp sneered back.

"Captain, are you all right?" Booster inquired severe.

Buzz shook his head, still being half in the world of dreams. He noticed himself lying on his back the floor, his team and the two extra members gathered around him.

"Wha... what h-happened...? Where am I?" he tried to get some sense to the whole thing. With difficulty he managed to sit up supported by his elbows.

"Dontcha remember, cap? You were gonna be the next Lord Sidious!" XR pointed out.

In a bolt the memories of three weeks flashed into Buzz's mind. A terrible grimace spread across his face as he cast his regard towards the clothes he was wearing.

"No! NO! What have I done? I was..." he stammered.

"The freshly baked servant of the dark side..." Warp commented.

"H-How are you here...? And, _you_?" Buzz was left to stare Darkmatter, as he had done previously.

 Mira shortly summarised what had happened. Tears in his eyes, Buzz mourned his commissions and what he had let himself do. "I don't understand... how this could... what I have done? Betrayed Star Command by telling Zurg every little security detail of it! Betrayed the Galactic Alliance! And now... Zurg is preparing the Imperial Army to attack the Universe Protection!" 

The whole group around him gasped for terror.

"All my fault! How are we going to stop him?" he cried out in emotional pain.

"Hush, Captain, you couldn't have resisted what you did. Not in that narcosis", Mira attempted to soothe the atmosphere.

"I let my mind get weak! I let it wander along the wrong path! I actually believed what Zurg told me! I... was in the fate that I would be never saved from here... t-thank you that you finally came."

"It took us pretty long time since there were obstacles on the road", Zarah explained.

"And maybe we can still stop the Emperor. That's why we're here. Team Lightyear to the rescue!" XR blurted.

"And Captain, don't blame yourself about what has occurred. You're good again!" Booster added.

With both hands, full of anger, Buzz ripped his extra cloak away, letting the Z buckle bounce to the furthest corner of the room. 

"I am not a servant of darkness!"

"Well, welcome to the lighter side", Darkmatter chuckled, as if _he_ had always been there.

Buzz' face remained in its severe expression. "Warp... I'm so glad to see you alive and in condition. I'm very ashamed of this whole thing, it was partly my fault. If I hadn't begun to follow your wife, I'd never arrived in such a trap..."

It was not an easy moment for Darkmatter, either. When he had actually discussed with Buzz in a reasonable way, lately? It had been years. What would he answer to such a sentence? Confused he turned his regard away from Lightyear.

Conversely, the Captain extended him his hand. Buzz was just informed that the whole rescue trip was Warp's merit, that without him here now, Buzz would have possibly been left into the abysses of darkness for forever... not to mention the destiny of the Galactic Alliance. Such a close shave it had been... Zurg was there preparing his armies, ready to blast off the whole peace of the Milky Way.

"Warp... I want to thank you... for what you have done this far", Buzz noted.

With an awkward expression, Darkmatter murmured something back and shook lightly the hand that was in front of him. "It ain't over, yet. We gotta get ya outta this bogey lair and save the universe, like in all those corny science fiction movies."

"Still, Warp... I'm glad to see you after all these years as a reformed man. In my heart I hoped that you would change someday and now that has happened", Buzz gave an elegiac smile.

"Nah..." Darkmatter rolled his eyes and gripped Zarah, putting her in front of Buzz' nose. "Thank this li'l thing here. Without her, I'd still be happily swimming in the pool of my moon..."  

Buzz knew what was behind this sarcasm and shook warmly once again the blue hand. "No, it's you who did the choice."

"So, Mister Dark Lord, how's the head?" Darkmatter decided to shift the topic.

Just now, Lightyear actually felt the ache that emitted from his occiput. Then there was the fog left by the drugs. "Let me guess, you gave me a jolt?"

"Yeah, for the sake of the old times!" the blue alien chuckled. "D'ya think you can stand up? I mean, you need to crawl out of here. Our ship is a bit in a distant place."

Buzz tried out his suggestion. At first, he was to fall, but gained back the balance and finally stood with two legs. He appeared to be worn out, but with his strong physiques, was able to recover quite fast.

"Ya still look like a sapling in a storm!" Warp gave a laugh.

Thus the atmosphere had in a breeze lightened up. The rest of Team Lightyear were amazed how well Warp and Buzz got along with each other, after all the years of fighting and hate. So fast had the ropes of friendship been fastened, again. Mira, Booster and XR ultimately had to admit that they had been wrong regarding Darkmatter; he was a reliable and reformed man, under that sarcastic bad-boy cover. Maybe it was his trademark to play that minor baddie role, at least Buzz took it like that. In Star Command academy, before Warp had turned to serve Zurg, they had been the best of friends -so why not now, too? 

"Righto, what's the plan of getting outta here?" XR blurted, after the conclusion had been made that the captain was able to walk.

"That's one heckuva question..." Warp pressed his forehead with his palm. Two minutes Buzz' chamber was in total silence, since everyone grilled their brains with that jigsaw puzzle.

"Any ideas...?"

"Nah. My head is as empty as the inners of a football."

"In any case, we need to approach so that the minions here won't understand me being myself, again", Buzz noted and for the same moment comprehended that he had a way to get out in his hands. "That's it. You keep pretending your cleaner roles and I keep mine. I guess we can make up something en route along these corridors. Like that I was giving you tasks and leading you somewhere. Where's your ship?"

"It's not very near... hopingly this will work." Booster was quite nervous.

"It'll go to the ditch or to the puddle. Let's give a try, shall we?"

Therefore, after Mira had grumbling set the mop back to her head, the rescue troop left the chamber and headed out. It was quite an early morning, so the traffic in the main halls was rather inactive. It had literally taken the whole night to heal Lightyear. By hook or by crook, all the group members had been able to sleep some moments, so that they were not that tired as expected. Zarah was maybe the liveliest after spending the night snoring under the arm of her master. 

 In the second floor was the first obstacle. A group of brain-pods met the fugitives. Immediately Buzz took an evil grin on his face and straightened up his pose.

"Evil morning, Lord Zenith! Shouldn't you still be in your chamber?" the lackey signed #113 asked a bit suspiciously. He did not actually know, had the apprentice any permission to be here.

Lightyear angrily talked with chest tone. "I am presenting this group their work functions. They shall be ordered to clean the 2nd refuge chute with toothbrushes so sparkly and shining that one can see his reflection from the walls. Evil purity."

"Oh, I see. Do you want me to guide you there, Sir?" the jar asked back.

"Not necessarily. I know my way, the dark side leads me."

"Very well then, Sir! Have a very malicious day!"

The minions let the relieved refugees through, but behind their backs, they continued their discussion. 

"I wonder if I should shout after Lord Zenith that the place where they're going is not that way." #113 noted to his companion.

"But Sir Zenith will find it, didn't you hear what he said?" #9362 added.

"Oh but I will thank the Emperor about this so much, that refuge chute has been such an annoyance to our organs of smell for a long time! It is so good that it will be disinfected." #3363 put up his comment.

 Buzz and his crew had arrived to the underground tunnel of the first floor, when Warp opened up his mouth, laughing impishly, "_Lord Zenith!_ Double quasars! Not even I was called with that kind of prefixes here. What the bouncing Eridanus are you, some kind of a prince of Z Empire?" He had taken the hornet head away for to get some air.

Lightyear felt his forehead shimmering quite a lot. "Kr-hm. I don't want to talk about that. Do you think I had some kind of idea that one day Zurg would want _me_ to be his apprentice?"

"Yee-haw... at least ya have adopted your role pretty well since you have even learned to talk like the Purple Hazard. I bet ya never used the word 'shall' before the holiday here", Darkmatter sniggered.

The face of the captain grew gloomy. "This experience will haunt me years after this... I'll maybe never get rid of the disgusting thought that there is an evil side in me, too, and that it can be awakened even that easily..."

Under his sarcastic nature, Warp felt suddenly compassion towards Buzz. He knew perfectly what where the ghosts that would be hollering in his head, years, years after it all had ended. Putting his flesh hand on Buzz' shoulder, he talked with a low tone. "Lisn'... I didn't mean to be mean. I know what it is... an' that it ain't a piece of space dust to swallow..."

A light smile brightened up Lightyear's expression. Patting Warp's back, he nodded, "I guess this is nothing compared to it what you have gone through. But thanks, buddy."

"Nah..." the blue alien cast his eyes towards the floor.

"Still... I have a million question marks spinning in my head. I can't partly understand the way Zurg treated me. I've always thought that he only has wanted to kill me... but this thing was far something else. And beyond that all... there's something eerily familiar in him, like... like that I'd know him somehow..." Buzz fingered his chin with wrinkled brows.

"Ha-ha! Yeah, right!" his conversation companion burst into guffaws. "Sure! Maybe ya were visiting the factory as a kid where that android was manufactured!"

Those words jerked Buzz into his own reality. So Warp did not know that Zurg was _not_ a robot? Under that disguise was hidden some kind of a being, maybe some green slimy slug, who knew. As Lightyear was now in his full sense, he could more rationally deliberate the issue than in his narcotic state. "Zurg... as if I'd met him once in another form... how can he be so dumbfoundingly familiar? But it can't be... I've still been a child when the Emperor began his reign... and how on Mars can I distantly feel that he _doesn't_ want to hurt me, after all... or are these just the shrieks of the dark side, left as remains of these days, forever..." He decided to draw another discussion topic forth, leaving Warp still to believe that the ultimate villain was mechanic.

"Ahh... when I get home, I'll take a hot shower and get rid of this beard!" he sighed.

"Why? I think that black hair on your face passes you quite well", Warp commented.

"Craters... it'll just remind me of this all."

"Think it as a fashion change. Ya might try to keep that for a while. See, Zurgie must've got some kind of fashion chip installed under that horn head, because his li'l tips tend to work. See, he once told me to grow this goatee."

Now it was Lightyear's turn to laugh. "He did? And you've kept that thing for years!"

"Uh-huh."

So the troop continued to walk along the long tunnel.

-----------------

Meanwhile...  

Emperor Zurg had just banged the door of his private hall shut. The lord used to wake up early, since in his age, the sleep did not come that well any more, as in the bright years of youth. This day would be a big day to him in the stream of time. To prepare his mighty army to attack that pathetic Alliance. Thus maybe tomorrow, he would have gathered so much power that he would be ready for his big, nasty surprise.

 Yet, something in his subconscious kept humming that not everything was right in their grooves in his empire. As if there had been a great loss of evilness during the last 12 hours.

"Mwahahaahaah. Never mind of those buzzes in my magnanimous brains. Things have never been in a greater balance in the dark side! And my empire shall shine its black glory..."

Beaming he entered his throne room and sat boasting down to his seat.

"Now only to wait for Zeniths return. I shall let that boy sleep a bit longer today since it was laborious for him, yesterday." 

 Suddenly there was a knock in the hall door. Zurg pushed an entrance button and let the lackey in that was behind it.

"What?" the Emperor snorted.

"Oh, Sir Darkness! I sure have to praise you about the great deed you have ordered to do!" It was the brain-pod number 3363 who had come to announce his gratitude about the refuge chute cleaning operation.

Zurg's expression turned smug and he took a relaxed pose in his throne. "Oh, yes, my superior plan to take over the Alliance..."

"Yes, Sir, that is magnificent, too, but I actually came to thank you about the other one."

"Hmh... what other one?" Zurg tried to remember.

"Oh but Your Lowliness! The cleaning task! Lord Zenith was just leading the stewardesses to start the work in refuge chute 2nd. I must say that the smell has been this far..." the visitor in front of Zurg explained lively.

Then the villain awoke. This was something completely new to him. "Zenith was where? He should be sleeping!"

"He was there guiding the cleaners. I was thinking that they went in a bit wrong direction since the refuge chute 2nd is in the north wing, but he was..." the story continued.  

Zurg could nothing but stare at the brain-pod flabbergasted. "WHAT?"

"S-s-s-sir...?" the unlucky servant wheezed.

"I have NOT ordered to clean the refuge chute 2nd!"

"S-s-sir, I..." #3363 searched for the best quick entrance with his regard. He did not want to be blasted by Zurg's laser eyes.

"Quasars! What is going on behind my back?" Zurg bellowed. "I have NOT ordered any group of cleaners from any system to come here. Neither should Zenith be with any of those. Immediate alarm!"

Now the minion had a good excuse to whiz away from the fierce lord. He would make a drill. Meanwhile, after the Emperor had gathered his thunderstruck thoughts, he pushed a comm. link button of his throne screen and called for 30 hornets. He could still not believe what had happened, but the things were not in their own positions. Zenith was acting against the orders. Wasn't he supposed to be under the influence of the medicines? Was it possible that he could have awakened from his state? It was obvious that the apprentice attempted to flee. There was no other reason why he would be walking with that kind of an unknown group, in the very wrong floors of the Palace.

"The son of Z. Z. Lightyear will never leave this place!" Zurg yelled and blazed around with his red regard. "He will obey me and take back his position, would it then be with whatever means! He will be punished until he is humble enough to cringe in front of my might!"

When the hornets had been gathered, Zurg switched on his jet boots and leaded the dark battalion to the place he understood his disobedient apprentice travelling.

It did not take even half an hour after the Emperor found the fox that had fled the trap. He caught up Team Lightyear from behind, in the underground tunnel. So silently he had been approaching his booty that no one of the representatives of the good side had been prepared to this.

_"Apprentice Zenith!"_ a loud, metallic holler suddenly echoed in the corridor.

Startled Buzz and his crew turned about, getting their eyes wide because of the menacing view. Zurg himself stood there with a flock of hornets, ready for action.

"Apprentice Zenith, where do think you are going? And who may I ask is your charming company?" the Emperor roared, eyes firing electric fury.

"I am Buzz Lightyear, not your apprentice. I know no else name but the one that was given for me as I was born. I don't serve you!" the Captain shouted back and prepared to defend himself.

Zurg gasped in frenzy, "You were supposed to be in narcosis! And you shall serve me, until the stars fade! Your pathetic cleaner company is not there to opposite my army! Hornets, get them!"

For the same second, Mira threw away her fancy dress and so did the rest. Soon Team Lightyear (excluding Buzz) stood there resolute their wrist lasers tuned. In addition, it was a sheer moment of terror for the Dark Lord, when the robot-looking tall creature in front of him tossed his mask away, revealing the face of a man that was supposed to lie under a tombstone.

"Darkmatter!" Zurg was to lose his balance, when hovering there with his jets. Warp grinned back ironically and shifted the hand part of his right arm to some kind of a tool. "Greetings from the graveyard!"

"Darkmatter!" Zurg spat, "How dare you do this to me, again? You once ruined my empire, and there shall be no other change! This time, I shall make it true that you are and STAY dead!"

"Not so fast, Mister Purple Curtain", Warp smirked and blasted something with his arm towards the two hornets that were right beside the enemy. He got a straight hit and in a picosecond, the droids were covered with something pink and tacky that mainly resembled chewing gum.

"What's that?" Buzz made a quick wonder.

"It's handy to have an engineer at home. That sticky mess is Choi-X-glue , a patented invention. Will stop any moving object, but won't harm it." Warp laughed.

"Talk about non-violence!"

"You will not get away with this!" The Emperor roared from the other part of the corridor, "Hornets, bring Zenith to me! Do not harm him. The others you can finish off."

Those were the words to start a traditional cat-dog race.

 After spending some time blasting and evading Zurg's metal servants, the hero team decided to get away from the tunnel. The air was too much filled with sulphurous fumes. Moreover, it definitely was not any joy-ride for them, since the imperial forces were quite magnificent in comparison to the little Star Command gang. The Emperor called more hornets into the battle, also participating himself to the event. His main target seemed to be Darkmatter. It was now an obsession for him to get rid of that blue pest, who had come to destroy once again his dark schemes. The fight shifted to roll its chaos to a large stock room where the underground tunnel leaded. Laser rays whizzed by, destroying robots, burning holes into the walls. The droids were told to shoot dead everyone else, but Buzz. Actually, inside the robes of the Emperor was struggling an emotion that told him not to hurt Zenith too much. But the others, for them the heart remained cold as a snow cone.

 Warp's chewing gum gun indicated to be quite efficient in averting dangers. It glued hard the objects into their places. The only slight problem was that the supply would not be enough there for infinity and beyond. In addition, Star Command lasers were necessarily not the best defenders against the plasma riffles of Zurg's hornets. Team Lightyear slowly retreated trying to find a way to get out of the building. Therefore, the situation needed random happenings for to get a conclusion.

 In the heated combat-zone, no one paid attention to a particular hornet that had got stuck beside a certain doorway. Warp had recently blasted a glue-missile towards it and made a good hit. However, the droid tried its best to free itself from the arresting material. It flung and fought back, its nano-flip-flops signalling almost in the point of overheating. Suddenly there was a shortcut in its main CPU, causing the robot start to shoot plasma doses out of its riffles, without a detected target. It happened to wrestle beside an electricity control room. A couple of ion doses slid into the open doorway, hitting straight a complex combination of computers, crystallic fusion chamber connectors and other devices. The lost projectiles indicated to be quite deadly for that room and its functions. With a huge bang, the plasma hit the electric gadgets. That was a start for an immeasurable chain reaction. Along the cords, the over-current slipped in light speed to a dozen of control junctions. Not even the laws of Kirchhoff were there to stop it. This leaded to an unexpected mass destruction, beginning a series of detonations.

 Team Lightyear, Warp and Zarah woke up to hear the hundreds of smaller and bigger explosions that happened in the miscellaneous parts of the building. A new panic struck, as if there would not have been enough tumults this far. Where to go? How to be safe? Out of the blue, the whole room shook as if an earthquake would have taken it in its hands. Some stands that were attached to the ceiling, fell heavily onto the floor, bringing down some pillars and layers of wall material. Then, a bang so loud that it made tinnitus to take over everyone's ears. After that, silence. All the voices of human life had suddenly faded. The hall was full of smoke and dust, which darkened the air to an artificial night. When the reek gradually faded, it revealed a miserable view. Broken hornets lying here and there, among the large pieces of concrete, pillars and trash metal, were the results.   


	12. Horrible revelations

**12. Horrible Revelations**

Little by little, there were signs of life among all the mishmash. Warp and Zarah scrambled up from under some debris. Both were grey from dust, as noticeably everything else around, too.

"Ya're all right, Za?" he coughed and heaved her up from her armpits.

"I'm fine, but what the heck happened? Where are the others?" she peeked through the mist and got her eyes attached to Warp's right arm. It was battered, loose cord flexes hung out from an irregular hole.

"Honey, you're hurt!" she exclaimed, but he clarified that it were only the shield parts that were damaged.

Distant noises were heard from the other part of the hall.

"Shht! There may be still hornets!" Warp alarmed.

But in front of their eyes soon swayed the weary figure of Buzz. Whole his 'Zurgean suit' was torn. "Uh... my head... where did the explosion come from? Where is everybody?" he held his temples.

"The question is: where's Zurg? He may be lurking behind some corner and be ready to blast us off!" Warp noted.

"I'm concerned about my team... hey, someone comes from there, looks like Booster!" Buzz pointed with his finger at the shadows. Indeed, it was the Jo-Adian, carrying XR who was in two parts, Mira sitting on his shoulder. She seemed to have gone through a misfortuned ghosting, because she was half-buried into a piece of concrete wall, her hair in a messy cloud above her.

"The battle is over... but did Zurg get away again?" Booster asked fatigued.

"I guess he did, but the main thing is that we're all here, in one piece."

"In one piece? Well, easy for you to say that!" XR nattered.

Warp looked out from a window that opened towards Zurg Tower. The landscape was quite gloomy. The huge palace was completely collapsed, partly in fire. Small explosions happened in the ruins all the time. "Come to see this... I'm glad we were here 'cause otherwise we had got all free funerals! And... I guess the main control room of all the security devices and hornets and sort has gone bye-bye. Planet Z's tech is dead."

"Zurg will build it all again, after he comes back... you know, always the people you think to be dead appear in a form or another in front of you..." Buzz leered at Warp who pouted amused back.

"Don't start to nag, we gotta find a way outta here. I have a big work to do in repairing my husband's arm an' I guess you other guys do wanna rest after this, too. Wasn't the main thing that we get Captain Lightyear back? And we still need to warn Star Command about Zurg's possible surprise attack." Zarah folded her arms over her chest.

"I think his attack plans are history even for a while, if his metal armies won't work. Maybe we have the time to redo Star Command's defences before a new scheme", Buzz noted.

"There's a door, or relevant!" Mira observed from her high position. So, the gang began to took steps towards the direction.

 But more and more they went forward, the more a sound of deep, broken breaths filled the air.

"What's that?" Buzz blinked his eyes.

"Sounds like..." Warp started a sentence, but soon stopped because of a peculiar view in front of them.

 Emperor Zurg laid full length, on his back on the floor. His majestic features were as always, but a huge piece of sharp metal was stuck into his right flank. Blood was flowing freely to the floor from the deep wound. Weakly he attempted to breathe in, in the slashing pain the handicap caused him.

Every one of the watchers tapped backwards.

"Z-Zurg! H-he's... a life form!" was the first comment.

"I learned that, here. He's not a robot." Buzz muttered. "I just wonder what kind of a living creature can be so much filled with wickedness."

"Please... help me..." the Emperor whispered.

No one was to believe their ears. _Zurg asking for help?_

"H-HELP YOU? After all what you've done?" Mira spat. "I think you'd deserve the most disgusting death available, after killing thousands of innocent people and trying to destroy everything that is still good in this galaxy!"

Warp was still thunderstruck about the fact that Zurg indeed was some kind of a living creature, not an android. Although he had served the dark lord for years, he never had been granted with that knowledge. 

Again, another weak petition came from the floor. "Please... forgive me... I don't want to die... please, I don't want... to die..."

"He's ready to kill everyone else in his way, but he's afraid of the grim reaper...?" XR wondered.

A long and sorrow inhale came underneath.

"_What_ are you?" Buzz asked grave and got so much courage into him that kneeled beside the dark lord.

"Help me... to remove my helmet... then you'll understand..."

"You really got a helmet? That's not your face?" Warp was astounded and squatted beside Buzz.

"Warp, could you try to staunch the bleeding and not to launch sarcasms? This man or cyborg, whatever he is then, is going to be arrested." Buzz put his hand on Warp's shoulder and scolded him quietly. After this, he started to finger Zurg's collars.

"How to get your helmet off?" he asked.

"There are... two small pressure buttons on both sides..." Zurg raised his claw a bit to point the place, soon still moaned in pain and took his previous pose.

Buzz pressed them, letting a cloud of compressed air hiss out. With hesitating moves he loosened the helmet, then froze completely and was just left to gape aghast the view.

 Everyone else around Zurg was as dumbfounded. Booster even dropped the other half of XR on the floor because his arms went so slack. The weak light through the windows created a creepy glow into the room where the dust particles slowly descended in the air.

Zurg blinked his eyes and slowly raised his hand towards Buzz. Old, hollow voice pleaded: "I... couldn't help... it... son..."

Now the last nerves of Buzz went inert and he dropped the helmet he was keeping. Sweat trickled along his forehead and in horrible disbelief he began to repeat: "No, no....NO! NO! This is not true, NO!"

The man on the floor was like a mirror image of Buzz maybe after twenty years. Even as Buzz had now the shaped full-beard, the violet robe on, his black hair visible, no one could have doubted any longer the relation of him and the man that lied there. The Emperor had only thicker brows, somewhat a smaller chin and brown eyes. Everything else was confusingly similar from the thin nose to the regard.

The others surrounding Zurg and Buzz leered in turn the wounded man and the ranger. No one could get a word out of his or her mouth. Nevertheless, Buzz soon let a terrible cry in the air, banging the floor with his fists. "NO! This is a trick! This is some kind of a trap you have put in front of me! This is not true!"

"Search... your feelings, and you know it is the truth..." was the listless answer.

"Why are you doing this trick to me? WHY? It can't be, no..." Buzz continued his miserable holler. He could possibly not admit it although his emotions told it clearly.

"You're... his...his... _father_?" Warp was the first of the others to be able to say something, staring at the Emperor with sheer disgust. "You... how many times have you tried to KILL Buzz? Your... _son_? What kind of a monster is a father that attempts to kill his own flesh and blood?"

"I... did not actually want to... kill him... but turn to serve me... so we could have ruled the galaxy like... father and son... But now... it is all futile... I am sorry..." 

"I have always known you killed my father! You can't be my father, he died ages ago!" Buzz yelled in tears.

"I... staged my own death... for to begin a new life... in a new form... as the apprentice of my own Master... I was trained to serve the dark side... and as he died, he gave me his Empire..."

Much else was not heard out of the Emperor's mouth. He sighed deep and passed out.

After a minute of frightening silence, Booster piped, "Is he... dead?"

"No, that _thing_ ain't a corpse, yet. We can get him alive to Star Command HQ, if we wonna. More concerned I'm about his dear sonny..." Warp commented his forehead wrinkled. Indeed, Buzz was in a very bad state. He sat lachrymose in a corner, gnawing his nails, like there was not a light of sense at all in him.

"He's in shock." Zarah understood.

"Who wouldn't be? If I'd find out that a hyper-hornet is my poppa..." XR began, but got so much angry stares towards him that stopped. Who could ever have predicted the morning to end up like this?

 The situation was arranged so that Booster was put to carry the indolent Emperor, though he hesitated it quite much. That man namely was too heavy for anyone else. Warp supported Buzz who barely could walk, he was so upset. Mira got rid of the concrete dress and carried the feet part of XR. The head was left to chatter with Zarah. On the way to the ship, there was nothing but a deathlike stillness surrounding the journey. No grub or brain-pod in the capital was there to resist the travellers. 


	13. A new hope

**13. A New Hope**

The future is always in move. No human can predict it, not the randomness of happenings that roll the universe forwards. And it is not meant for us to see the fortune. The darkness, the lightness, their eternal fight inside every one of us is there to decide, how to build the coming periods. On the other hand, maybe encountering one's weaknesses, finding out the own mortality, makes even the most callous conscious work, leading to penitence and absolution...

Hundreds of Star Cruisers and transportation ships glided in the velvet vacuum, their engines singing a humming melody. That was the parade of justice, coming to take over the hell called Planet Z. The tyrant was gone, as well as the despotism. What was there to hinder the Alliance to finally make its own little dream come true, to one day rule the dark Zurgean Empire. No one knew what to do with such vast distances of solar systems, but maybe the time would show a meaning.  

 Weeks after the destruction of Empire Z, Capital Planet's main hospital had been the main stage of the happenings. Emperor Zurg, or more strictly said Zoxedaszeĉ Zora Lightyear, had gone through a difficult surgery. He had been in coma for a while because of the handicap and the blood loss, but now he was gradually recovering from the accident.

 However, the prospects of Buzz Lightyear were not that bright. On another department, he had been given medical treatment because of the mental shock he had gone through. In addition, the medicines that his vessels were fed with, started to cause him withdrawal symptoms, because he did not get them regularly any longer. For the moment, he was furthermore deeply depressed. But during all this time, he had not spent much hours in his own room. He sat at the bed of his father, at first watching him laying in coma and then, silently chatting with him, about considerably lame topics, but in every case. Somehow he could not leave the presence of Zurg. There was a huge emotion binding those two. Without noticing, it had been built during the time Buzz had served the dark side. It was only strengthened when the identities had come clear. There had been the prohibition, but he knew he could not flee the bitter truth. Two gloomy figures in a dim room, talking almost with whispers... that was the usual view for the nurses and guests.

 The extraordinary story of Father Lightyear was gradually dug out from the mental dungeons. After the death of Adi-Gaia, her husband had little by little grown full of hatred and feelings of revenge. One day there was no belief of goodness any longer in him. In the diplomatic life he had then gotten friends with an old senator, who had seemingly been keen on to help him, to get out of that depression. However, that friend appeared later to be a spy of a small but raising empire out of the borders of the Alliance. And... one unlucky day, that senator had persuaded Zoxedaszeĉ to visit the reign which representative he was. Evil Emperor Zidár, the ancient ruler of Planet Z, had been for a long time highly interested in Lightyear's skills in politic environments. Especially intriguing it was now when he had heard about the depressive moods of the particular person. So, by offering Zoxedaszeĉ a possibility to get a revenge on the mafia that had killed his poor wife, he made a deal with Zidár. The Emperor would arrange the deaths of the mafia members... and for the prize, get an apprentice. As Lightyear's mind was already full of wrath, he was easy to turn to the dark side, to follow his teacher. For the same time, Zoxedaszeĉ still practised his profession as ambassador, but gradually got more and more hooked to the other part of his double life. Behind the backs, he worked as a spy of that foreign empire, alike Warp Darkmatter had once been Zurg's relevant worker. As the gates were open for to examine the classified files of Alliance, what was there to stop him not stealing them? Keeping his identity well in secret, he was a perfect infiltrator.

 When Father Lightyear had reached the age of 25, Zidár suddenly died. As he was now the anointed successor of the Emperor, he decided to make a complete change in his life. Being a single-parent of a five-year-old boy did not interest him much any longer. The relatives would take the care of that kid, he was not needed any more. What he wanted was evil glory, might, as he had learned to thirst for during the years. Therefore, one day a new Emperor was crowned... and an ambassador announced to dead. The rest was history.

 But... what it was said about perceiving one's weaknesses, may lead to drastic vicissitude. Zurg seemed not to be himself, any longer, after waking up from the coma. Moreover, he was introvert, silently regretting everything he had done to himself and to the rest of the world during all this time. When his surgeon and caretaker, a young maiden named Mariañ Haydée, pushed him along the hospital corridors in a wheel-chair, he did not exist as the scary Emperor at all he used to be. Only there was left a mid-aged, yet very majestic-looking man, who with bowed head and shadows under his eyes cursed the day he had started to obey Zidár.  And... beside him, walked another male with bent shoulders, his son. Everywhere Zurg went, Buzz was there, timidly.

 As the days turned to several weeks, it was the time for Buzz Lightyear to step out of the hospital chambers. Still, in a long time, he would not work as space ranger. Some directions told that his career would be over for eternity, but nothing was sure, this far.

The Galaxy was not the same as it used to be, either. After the dispatch of the greatest foe's ravage had reached the furthest corners of the Galactic Alliance, it had been a moment of silence and astonishment. Would space finally be peaceful to all its habitants? Was this too good to be true?

 The official news was, however, that Emperor Zurg was passed away. No one needed to know the truth of him being alive, since there would be a million avengers knocking his door if someone knew him subsisting in the neighbourhood. Neither it was necessary to inform intergalactically that the most evil creature in the universe was actually the father of a famous space ranger. Only in the infirmary, there were persons that were aware of his true name. So, it fell upon him like the shades had covered Warp Darkmatter. A new identity, a new life, a new hope... a confidential amnesty of the Galactic Alliance... only the future would write the saga onwards. There was actually no sense to arrest or put Zurg in prison, since how would it benefit anyone? Perhaps it was better to give the sinner a second change, just like his ex-henchman was once granted to do.

 One day, an undetermined time beyond the new era, Team Lightyear, Warp, Zarah, Zurg and some personnel of the hospital had gathered to share news. The colloquy was awkward for everyone, long and taciturn breaks shadowed the atmosphere. No one was sure about his or her emotions, what to say, how to manifest one's opinions. Being face to face like this with Emperor Zurg was nothing easy. Forgiving all this, the poor destinies of the thousands of innocent who had seen their ending from his claws, was merely impossible. No one could bring their cries back, how much Zurg would ever do confessions. The burden of sin would stay, until the earth would swallow his corpse.

 But was there any reason to nurse a grievance, either? No one would be healed that way. What was learned from all these occurrences was that the moods of grudge and unforgiveness were the ones to cause destruction. Only cherishing right values would help to fight the evil forces.

 In the assembly room, the emperor let a couple of times his harsh bass voice echo in the air, declaring words of remorse. He was something completely different without his usual get-up, now only dressed to full-black leisure cloths. Under there, his huge chest was bandaged, his body amazingly quickly recovering from the accident. Sitting there taller than anyone (excluding Booster), letting his dark eyes blaze their regard, he still managed to look dangerous and full of might. However, his hand seemed deliberately to fiddle the one of the woman sitting next to him, his surgeon Mariañ. Finding love after 30 years of loneliness, was one more prospect there to boost the mental ameliorating.

 Opposite to them, Warp finally spoke. "We have no words to describe this... only thing I can say is that it feels so odd to be able to walk along the streets of Capital Planet like a normal decent habitant..."

Zarah was in light tears, squeezing the blue hand of her mate. "...and to finally live together with my love without the need of constant hiding and secrets..."

"That's right, babe", Warp whispered back to her and took her under his arm.

Buzz, who was sitting in the right, seemed to have adopted fully the fashion he was made to fit in on Planet Z. No more thermal hoods, he let his black full-beard chime with his almost blue-shiny hair.

"I... I don't know what is going to happen to me..." he sadly sighed, "I can't get back to my work... at least not now. Maybe some day Buzz Lightyear reports for duty, but now... I just want to rest... and..." he gave a look at Zoxedaszeĉ, "...be... with my father..." then the eyes turned to Darkmatter, "...and also, share the long-gone and remade friendship with you, Warp."

Zurg slowly and darkly announced, "I am sorry, Son... and... about all the things I have done wrong in my life... I never should have left you... and I hope that we shall live in peace for this on...Mister Darkmatter, I can beg nothing but apologies from you, too. I have wasted my youth, my forces to the darkness... but shall it be too late to find a new beginning...? I hope that the laws of humanity are not arranged that way."

With hesitating moves, Mira sat up and tapped to him. For a moment, the old man stared at her extended hand in front of him. When he at last took it for to shake it, Nova nodded, "It's never too late."

"We will return to our works... remembering that the universe is not the same as it used to be in the decades of the monster reign..." Booster and XR concluded while watching the scene with watery eyes.

"What will become of your conquered empire?" Nova asked Zurg.

"I do not know... I do not care. I do not want power, might any longer... only to forget, to begin the new life you promised being possible for me..."

...

...

The Galaxy will keep on living, going, starting noveau epochs. The day and night will continue their twist and turn, but always there is the new hope, the hope that the goodness will one day rule it all. 

...

...

...

**THE END.******

**Evil never wins.**


End file.
